Survival Of Broken Dreams
by Magical-Tear
Summary: Every child has dreams to keep them safe, but when a group of friends encounter a space storm and wash ashore on an unknown planet, the survival of their future begins...KaoruxOC /First one in this site/
1. Chapter 1: Fiery Problems

_**A/N: **_Hehe, I decided to post another story while I finished my next chapter for Darkness Of The Heart...There don't seem to be many Uninhabited Planet Survive (or Planet Survival) stories out here, most of them are in spanish anyways ^^U I hope you enjoy this fanfic as much as I enjoy writing it!

_**Disclaimer: **_Mujin Wakusei Survive (Uninhabited Planet Survive! or Planet Survival for short) rightfully belongs to NHK. I only own the original characters which may appear during the story.

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**°°TT°°TT°°Chapter 1: Fiery Problems°°TT°°TT°°**

_"Now, press this button so you can see how the gravitational control unit is doing," a tall, raven haired man instructed his daughter in the spaceship's control room; he was white skinned and had big electric blue eyes._

_The twelve year old girl did as she was told, the same eyes as the father scanning over the digital keypad, the only difference being that there was a more gentle light in them like the one her mother's used to have, and they held a sadness pretty well hidden. They had been like that since her mother died three years ago by sudden illness._

_"Well, it seems to be in good condition," the father stated after inspecting the graphics that had appeared on the huge screen._

_However, just as he finished his sentence, the lights turned off and an alarm that could be heard all over the small ship went off, sending red beams of light all over the room. "What the…Brother, what's happening!" the father asked the girl's uncle, who was currently driving the ship. He looked pretty much the same as his brother did, only that he had dark brown hair instead of dark blue._

_"The radar is only detecting meteors, but they're too many…" the uncle explained, apparently not understanding the situation they were in._

_The girl's pet-robot then decided to look outside of the window, and his mouth fell wide open once he saw the reason of why all those space wastes were congregated in that place._

_"A BLACK HOLE!" he had screamed, falling backwards, away from the window. Everyone stayed still, shocked by the news, and in less than a second everyone started to do the emergency protocol._

_"Kimiko, move aside!" the father told her daughter in a rush, as she jumped off the chair and positioned herself behind it._

_People were running to save as much time as they could, talking through the radios so quickly the girl couldn't understand them, and beads of sweat were rolling down her father's and uncle's concentrated faces. Suddenly, one of the meteors hit the spaceship from behind, making the ship to shake violently and the power to go off._

_"Damn it!" the father cursed out loud when the screens and programs turned off, even the alarm was no longer sounding nor flashing red lights._

_"Everyone, go to the escape capsules! Quickly!" her uncle suddenly commanded, standing up from his chair._

_The crew didn't need to be told twice, and they all both rushed to the back part of the ship blindly._

_"What are you doing! We can't have them all scattered around!" the oldest brother yelled, as the ship was moved violently by the gigantic rocks once more._

_The girl couldn't hear what both siblings were arguing about, since she was too scared to do anything else than to look around with wide eyes, her loyal dog-robot standing beside her._

_Eventually, the younger brother went running out the door, probably to still catch an escape capsule seeing as there were not enough for the whole crew. The father managed to get to his daughter's side and grabbed her hand, dragging her through the once light blue hallways to the place where the capsules were kept, but when they finally arrived, they saw the remaining staff perfectly aligned, saluting the father…the Captain. Seeing this, his eyes softened as he scanned the lines of people, finding his most loyal followers but his own brother. The father led the girl and her dog towards the last capsule, lifted her up, and placed her down on the empty seat._

_"Everything is going to be alright, ok? This is just a precaution…I wouldn't want to lose you," the father told her daughter softly, caressing her left cheek._

_"No it's not. It's going to be the same as with Mom," the girl said quietly, as her pet-robot jumped to get a seat beside her._

_"That's not true. We're going to use the wrap-system to get out of here," the father tried to comfort the blond haired girl, though his voice cracked at the end of the lie._

_"You're going to activate it without energy?" the girl asked sarcastically, tears already streaming down her soft cheeks. The father leaned in and hugged her tight, grabbing a handful of her long silky blond hair._

_"I want to stay here with you," the girl managed to say in-between sobs, her voice muffled by her father's shoulder._

_"Now I want you to listen to me very well, Kimiko. No matter what happens today, I want you to live a happy and plentiful life. Koinu will always be by your side, taking care of you," the father said, holding back his own tears._

_"You can count on that. I'll always be your best friend," the pet-robot said, his irregular eyes big and brimmed with tears, but his voice holding nothing but the truth._

_"But I don't want to live without you! Please don't leave me!" the girl begged, getting a stronger grip of her dad's uniform._

_"No! Promise me you'll live! Promise me you'll survive!" the father said harshly, holding his daughter by her shoulders. The girl nodded sadly, new tears cascading down her face._

_That was when another jolt made them remember the situation they were in, and the father quickly pushed the girl inside the capsule, locking it from the outside and launching it._

_"Dad! Wait, don't do this to me! Don't be the same as Mom! You can't do this! Dad! DADDY!" the girl screamed, pressing her face and hands on the glass that covered and protected the capsule._

******°°TT°°TT°°**

"D-Dad!" I cried out, sitting-up panting on my bed. I sighed, tired of dreaming the same memory this whole week, and rested my head on my hands. That was when I noticed that it was covered by dried up tears. I quickly grabbed my bed sheets and rubbed my face against them, cleaning away the tears.

"You had that dream again," a kind voice practically stated from in front of me. I looked up and found Koinu sitting on the lower part of my bed, looking at me with his left blue eye and right green one.

"What time is it?" I asked him, not wanting to talk more about the subject.

"Its 7:10am, you have time to wash yourself while I make breakfast," he said, kind of proud of his good job on waking me early.

"Thanks. I could really use a warm shower right now," I told him with a smile as I stood up. That was when my coughs started attacking me, making me to bend forward slightly.

"Hey Kimiko-chan, you ok?" he asked concerned, jumping off of my bed.

"Daijoubu, daijoubu. I'm going to take a shower now," I said while smiling, waving his worry off, as I went to take off my shirt.

"Ok, I'll have your medicine ready too," he announced, leaving my room to let me have some privacy.

I turned to my drawer and picked up the picture that showed my father, mother, and me together at the snow covered park. They were both carrying me, and we all held a joyful smile upon our faces.

"Ohayo Otou-san, Okaa-san" I said, looking at the picture with a soft smile on my face.

**°°TT°°TT°°**

I got down to the first floor of my apartment by using the circular elevator, already cleaned and dressed. "Your breakfast is ready," Koinu informed me from over the kitchen, as I entered the bathroom to do my hair.

"I'll be there in a minute," I replied as I pulled my long blond hair back into a ponytail that reached my mid-back, leaving my elbow-length bangs untied.

I took one last look at myself in the mirror, and I thought I looked ready. I was wearing a black tube top with baggy brown pants. I rushed to the kitchen and sat by the table, looking down at the plate of food that Koinu had prepared. There was bread, sausages, salad, soup, and my four different pills on the middle. Even if they were too many and tasted horrible, they kept my coughing away during school, and they prevented me from getting sick.

I quickly ate my breakfast and went to the bathroom to brush my teeth. Once that was done, I rushed over to Koinu and petted his head goodbye, slipped on my black sneakers with a golden line running through them, and took the digital key of my apartment door. "Bye Koinu! I'll see you later!" I called over at him, who still stayed at the kitchen making a glass of apple juice.

"Hai! Just be careful out there! Oh! And I almost forgot!" he called back to me right before I closed the door behind me, making me to pop my head inside once again. "I heard we have new neighbors, so I may go pay a welcome visit," he explained, as I just nodded in agreement and closed the door behind me.

I walked out of the green apartments building which was currently my home and started to walk over the electric bands, still having time to reach the school without having a tardy. I looked up towards the sky as the band passed through the rest of the blue, red, and green apartments that were built together to form some sort of community. I still thought that the blue color of some buildings was cooler than the lime green of mine, but I was comfy where I was, so I'm not complaining. I kept on watching my surroundings as I walked, completely amused by the flying cars, the long subway, the upper-class people that just let the moving band take them to their destinations, and the artificial sky above. Life in Colony Roka A-2 sure was different from my past life in Uranus…I have never seen snow in here for example, and I missed making figures with it and wearing my winter clothes.

I was taken out of my thoughts when I realized I was finally walking beside the light green walls that surrounded the Soria campus. Sadly, the architecture was not so pretty. It just looked like a tanned bundle with small windows and purple lines here and there, though it did have a huge garden. I passed through the gates and into the school, taking the hallway that would lead me to where my locker was located. I finally found my lime green locker and pulsed down the password.

"_Honestly, does everything around here must be green?_" I thought as I placed my books in my beige shoulder backpack.

I raised my head when I heard some tumbling noises on the next hallway, followed by some laughs, and then some insults. I frowned and walked over to check on it, and it didn't surprise me to find Howard alongside his 'friends' picking on someone, and I immediately got pissed off. Howard was quite skinny, with short pale blond hair and pale green eyes, he didn't even had a good fashion taste since he was just wearing a gray outfit with a dark red shirt underneath the jacket. So, why did he feel as he had the power? Because he's the son of the CEO of the most influential company on this colony. Tch, what an arrogant brat.

And who were they bullying? Bell, the most insecure and shy boy in the whole school, and I really don't know why very well since he's the complete opposite from Howard. He was tall, strong, had spiky brown hair, small black eyes, and tanned skin. You usually saw him wearing an orange sweatshirt and green cargo pants and boots. Well, I think he's the way he is because of his gentle heart. Still…he needs to know how to defend himself, but Howard is threatening to fire his father if he doesn't do what he's told…I think those are pretty good reasons for not being able to tolerate Howard, so I might as well save Bell _again_.

It was just then that I noticed a girl I had not seen before, standing there frowning at Howard. She had very short orange hair, big blue eyes of a darker color than mine, and she was wearing a yellow jacket, a brown miniskirt with white leggings, and orange and pink tennis shoes. Better end this quickly.

I walked towards them with a serious expression on my face, my eyes fixed on Howard. "Oi, what do you think you're doing?" I asked in a severe tone with my hands on my hips, making the small crowd to turn and look at me. The moment Howard saw me, a growl escaped his lips as he twitched in annoyance. "I thought I said you couldn't ask Bell to do your chores anymore," I told him, making his upper lip twitch slightly.

"I don't take orders from you! And he's the one who said he wanted to scrub our shoes!" he exclaimed, leaning over a bit.

Bell only cowered, knowing I couldn't do anything to free him out of this. My stare slowly turned into a glare, and to my surprise, Howard took a step back.

"And you so willingly accepted his offer, how kind of you Howard, you have just made his dream come true," I said sarcastically, totally unaware of the amazed looks I was receiving from the spectators at the moment. "Why don't you do us another favor and stop being as lazy to the point you can't even clean your own shoes for yourself!" I kept attacking, being careful to not insult him directly just in case.

As if on cue, a strange whistling sound was heard all over the hallway, indicating the beginning of class. Howard sent me one last cold glare before turning around and walking towards our classroom. After he was out of sight, I turned my glare towards Bell, who shrunk even more against the wall, looking down in shame.

"I don't know why I still even care," I told him quietly, turning my back to him and also starting to walk to the classroom. As I was walking, I could hear two pair of feet following me, not too far behind.

"Sharla, who is she?" I heard a girl ask, probably the orange-haired one from before.

"Her name is Kuriyama Kimiko. She too is a transfer student, from Uranus. She's actually very kind and fun to be with, but she's dangerous when she's mad," I heard the shy girl, Sharla, answer, apparently not even trying to lower her voice.

Hmm, I hadn't even notice her back there. I know I'm one of Sharla's few friends, maybe even the only one, since people always made fun of her for having such a huge imagination. She had wavy shoulder-length brown hair and she wore glasses over her innocent green eyes. She liked to wear a soft pink and blue sweatshirt, long brown shorts, dark blue knee-high socks, and dark brown shoes.

"Then why was she so rude to Bell and Howard!" the girl asked confused, not understanding my actions in the least.

"Kimiko has been defending Bell from Howard since she entered the school 2 months ago. I would be tired too of having to deal with the same situations over and over again," Sharla explained, completely taking my side on this.

Their conversation didn't last long since we reached the door to our classroom, and they both separated, Luna going towards the teacher and Sharla taking her seat. I walked quietly towards my seat, pretending to not have heard anything, and sat down before placing my backpack next to my desk.

I turned to look at the boy who sat to my right, who was spread on his chair apparently asleep. He had messy dark brown hair, light brown eyes, and slightly tanned skin. I saw him wearing a pair of black trousers, a black t-shirt, a pair of black shoes, and a gray vest very often including today. His name was Kaoru, and I had learned it during one of the times the teacher called him just the way I supposed he must know mine, since we had hardly talked to one another. However, that doesn't mean we hate each other, at least we have some tolerance between ourselves.

"Okay class, I want to introduce you to your new classmate, Luna," the teacher called out to us, gaining our attention. Beside him, in front of the class, was standing the girl from the hallway, looking far away from nervous.

"Well, Luna was raised in a colony on Mars and was encouraged with annual funding to become a great addition to our school. She transferred here by winning the Howard Foundation's Institutional Scholarship Award. In our class, after a certain student, who skipped two years because of exceptional grades, named Shingo…" he kept on saying, patting the head of a boy wearing glasses sitting at the front of the class. Apparently he was trying to fix some kind of device, seeing as he was using a screwdriver skillfully.

"…we had the pleasure to receive Kimiko from Uranus," the teacher finally continued, extending the palm of his right hand in my direction as if to point me out. "And now, we are honored to have our third transfer student. Everyone, please welcome her," he finally finished his little speech, feeling proud that almost every transfer student had been placed in his class.

"I'm Luna. I'm pleased to meet you," the girl said with a smile, which quickly disappeared after seeing our bored expressions.

"Sit in that empty seat over there," the teacher told her, motioning towards the available seat beside Sharla.

"I'm so glad I get to sit next to you, Sharla," Luna told her new friend excitedly, flashing a smile in her direction.

"Me as well. Glad to see you," Sharla replied respectfully, before the teacher continued with his class.

"Now, we'll discuss the class field trip that will finally be next week. Because this special field trip is a part of our real-life research studies, our main goal will be to understand and experience the colonization of planets first hand," the teacher explained, climbing up to his desk that was positioned a little bit higher than ours. "Computer, light off. Hologram on," he commanded, the lights turning off and a hologram of a contaminated planet appearing almost immediately.

He then started a slightly boring explanation on how humankind destroyed the ozone layer of the Earth and started to colonize Mars, process in which many people lost their lives. And please, notice that when I say 'slightly boring' I actually mean I wanted to do the same as Kaoru: just close my eyes and do as if I was actually imagining the whole thing, well, at least he was doing so in his dreams. I wonder how Kaoru manages to get those high grades if he always pretends to sleep through the lessons…

After some more periods of torture, time for physical education class finally came. It's not that I'm a super fan of sports, but at least you can do something else than sitting there and listening to boring lessons. We even learned a few defensive techniques once! I entered the girls changing rooms and walked to my locker, not at all surprised to find that my password was not working. I sighed and rolled my eyes once I saw some of Howard's friends snickering evilly at me, and just ignored them. I typed the secret code I once discovered was the locker's original one, the one that could open it no matter what. Once the door was opened, I used the small mirror that was behind it to see the shocked faces of the two girls. I once again ignored them and changed into the blue outfit with yellow lining for gym that also had a white t-shirt underneath.

I was closing and putting a new password on my locker when I heard Sharla's voice on the next row of lockers. "That's strange. This locker was open just a little while ago." I heard her say, probably talking to Luna. "Hey, Luna doesn't have a locker yet. Is there an extra one anywhere?" Sharla asked, leaning over the row of lockers so that she could take a glance to where I was standing behind Howard's friends.

"I don't know. Why don't you look for one yourself?" the girl with short brown hair asked her arrogantly, completely brushing her off.

"Sharla, if you keep hanging around that transfer student, your locker might disappear too," the other girl with short blond hair told her coldly.

"Hey, what the heck does that mean? If you're so brave to go there giving threats to my friends, I would like to see you actually keeping one," I suddenly said, directing the girls' attention to me for second time this day.

However, the bullies just humped and walked outside without answering me. I turned to Luna and Sharla and gave them a smile, my attitude changing completely. "You're having problems to open the empty locker, right? Here, let me help you," I told them in a kind tone, giving them a small smile. I stood in front of the locker that Sharla was trying to open and decided to put the original password of my own locker. Who knows? Maybe it was the same password for every locker…

Wow, perhaps I'm psychic, because the locker did open. "Sugoi! How did you do it?" Luna asked me amazed, though I noticed that Sharla had a troubled expression on her face.

"I just typed the original password of my locker. It seems to be the same for this one too," I replied with a sheepish smile, helping Luna to put all her belongings in her new locker.

"Thanks a lot! I'm Luna by the way, and I suppose you must be Kimiko," she told me, making me to smile at her and nod.

"Yep, that's me! Huh? What's wrong Sharla?" I asked her, seeing as she was not paying attention to our conversation.

"It's Howard. He's trying to ostracize us because of what happened this morning," Sharla told us, her gaze lost somewhere at the end of the hallway.

"I see. So he's only good at planning things like that," Luna quickly caught up, looking at Sharla sympathetically.

"I wonder why anyone can't just get along. Right?" I asked the both of them cheerfully, trying to improve the mood of our conversation. I couldn't help but remember my relationship with Kaoru, never talking but tolerating each other, that way people could stop fighting for a long period of time.

"What should we do? We're going to be ignored by everyone starting from today," Sharla said in anguish, biting down on her thumb nail worriedly.

"It'll be alright! We're here with you, alright?" Luna told her while placing her right fist over her heart, as if making a promise.

I frowned when I saw that tears were already starting to form in her eyes, and my voice suddenly got a little bit lower.

"Is this really the power other people have over you? Do you really care this much about what people say about you, even if they don't really even know you?" I asked her, kind of disappointed by her attitude, but she just lowered her gaze to the ground refusing to look at me.

**°°TT°°TT°°**

"Alright! All students not in the game, practice passing," the tall teacher of gym class instructed, and immediately people started to toss each other an orange basketball. "Now, Teams A and B, go into the first court! Menori, I'll leave that game to you," the coach told the blue haired girl beside him.

She had long wavy blue hair, was tall, and very strict, never wanting to break the rules, and her small purple eyes would stare accusingly at you if you ever did something wrong. She's the Student Council President and the chairman of the disciplinary section at our school, and I bet you can guess why. Even so, I like her, and she seems to like me because I have never gotten myself into trouble, not even when I'm fighting off bullies. Perhaps she doesn't agree with my form of dressing since it's so 'revealing', but since there's no written rule about it, she never says anything.

I watched longingly how both teams headed towards the court, as I received the ball from my classmate standing in front of me. I watched the team members line up in front of one another, preparing to start the match of air-ball. Howard, one of the girl from the lockers, and another brown haired boy formed one of the teams, and Luna, Sharla, and Kaoru formed the other one.

"_Aw, I so wanted to play_," I thought sadly as I kept passing the ball to the boy in front of me.

After some minutes of this same boring sequence of events, the whistle Menori was carrying around her neck suddenly sounded. I quickly turned my head in time to see Luna running towards Sharla, who was lying on the floor behind Howard. My hand then shot up, catching the ball that was flying directly towards my head. I turned to see the boy's shocked expression from seeing me catching the ball without even looking at it, and threw the ball back at him before sprinting over to my two friends. I picked up Sharla's glasses on my way, and sighed once I saw they were intact.

"Thank goodness, your glasses didn't break," I told Sharla once I knelt down in front of her and handed her the glasses.

"Thank you. Sorry, Luna. Can I sit this one out?" Sharla thanked me before turning to look at the red haired girl.

"Are you hurt somewhere?" Luna asked worried, inspecting her with her gaze.

"No, but if I keep playing more horrible things…" Sharla trailed off, shaking her head repeatedly.

"I know those guys are doing it on purpose," Luna said, following my gaze to look at Howard and the brown haired girl from the lockers, who were laughing together. "That makes me not want to quit even more. I don't want to lose no matter what," Luna explained confidently, raising her right fist unconsciously.

"If you quit now, you'll be doing just what they want you to," I told her softly, making their attention to fall on me now. However, we all turned around when Menori walked up to us, looking down at Sharla emotionlessly.

"Can you go on?" she asked her, waiting for a reply that didn't come.

"_I should have known…Sharla is not ready yet,_" I thought, quickly making a decision. I nodded once to myself and stood up, turning to face Menori.

"Menori, Sharla's ankle is twisted a little bit, she can't keep playing for now. Please, let me play in her place," I begged her, bowing slightly and placing my hands out in front of me as if I was praying. My both friends stared at me in shock, but there was gratitude painted all over Sharla's eyes.

"Okay, Sharla can sit on those benches. Continuing the match!" Menori instructed, raising her whistle and blowing on it, while I turned my anti-gravity boots on.

Luna had the ball since the beginning and she quickly passed it to me. I caught it and started to run towards the big floating goal, but it was not long after that the girl from the lockers came and tried to intercept me. I evaded her skillfully, and passed the ball back to Luna. She kept running towards the goal but at the same moment that she jumped to make the first point, Howard, Kaoru, and I jumped after her at the same time.

"Like I'd let you!" Howard shouted, reaching out to grab Luna's ankle in order to pull her down.

After that moment, it all happened as if I someone had pushed a slow-motion button. Luna turned around and tossed the ball back at me once more while in the air; Sharla called over to Menori, gaining her attention for a few seconds; Kaoru took advantage of this and did a roundhouse kick at Howard's left foot making him lose his balance; and I took this opportunity to place the ball inside the hole of the floating goal, scoring us the point and causing the alarm to beep.

"Goal!" Menori shouted after blowing on her whistle, having missed Kaoru's trick because of Sharla, who obviously did it on purpose.

We then all landed at the same time, Kaoru, Luna and me gracefully, and Howard crashing against the cushions of the wall. The moment Luna's feet touched the ground, she sprinted towards Sharla with opened arms, calling her name. They both hugged and started to jump on the same place, cheering happily. I watched this from the middle of the court, smiling slightly to myself, but I then turned to my left when I heard Howard complaining.

"Kaoru! You did that on purpose!" he exclaimed from the floor, raising a fist towards the boy's direction. Kaoru stopped walking beside me and looked off at the other side, hooking his thumbs on the band of his blue shorts.

"It's ok if the referee doesn't see, right?" he retorted, probably quoting Howard just a few minutes ago, and without another word, he started to walk back to the men changing rooms.

"You better remember this," I heard Howard say under his breath, as he growled lowly in anger. I sent him a warning glare, and went to join Luna and Sharla, who were still jumping around happily.

"Kimiko-chan! We did it! We did it!" Luna exclaimed, now rushing over and almost tackling me in a hug. I chuckled and returned the hug, Sharla joining us not long after, but neither of us noticed how Bell watched us from far away, completely impressed on how we placed Howard where he belonged.

**°°TT°°TT°°**

"So you're living alone, Luna?" Sharla asked our new friend as we all let the electric bands take us through the city towards our homes, earning a nod from her. It was almost sunset, and I bet Koinu must be already making dinner by now. "What about your parents?" she kept on asking, wanting to know more about Luna.

"My father died in an accident when I was 8. My mother two years earlier from sickness," Luna answered quietly, but still smiling slightly, not at all bothered with the question.

"Sorry. I asked you a weird question," Sharla said looking down in shame, a bit of pink crossing the bridge of her nose.

"No! It's ok. They'll both always be in my heart. I'm not lonely at all! What about you, Kimiko?" Luna then asked me, flashing a smile at my direction.

"Exact same story as you. Though my mother died when I was nine, and my father when I was twelve," I told her, also with a smile on my face, though my eyes were telling otherwise.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I guess it's strange we have so much in common," she told me, still smiling cheerfully. I chuckled and nodded, completely agreeing.

"You're both so strong. Even if I was told to live on my own it would be impossible," Sharla told us in awe, not understanding how we could be so fine without having a family.

"It's nothing if you get used to it," I told her calmly, shifting my weight to my right leg and putting my hand on my hip.

"Oh! Now that I think about it, I'm not alone at all! I have this obnoxious pet-robot named Chako," Luna exclaimed, placing her index finger on her chin, remembering.

"I see. An obnoxious pet-robot? Sounds rare," Sharla commented, sharing a look with me who totally agreed. I mean, I would never thought of Koinu as 'obnoxious'.

"Isn't it though? Because of it, my life is so much harder," Luna told us nodding, making me sweat drop.

"I'm completely opposite from you now. My pet-robot is actually my best friend and he always takes care of me. I don't know where I would be now if he was not there with me the whole time," I told her, joining my hands behind me and leaning over a bit so that I could see her beside Sharla, who was walking between the both of us.

"Ahhh! Outta the way! Outta the way!" we then heard someone screaming behind us.

We all turned around in time to see the small genius from our class, Shingo, going at full speed towards us in his air-scooter. He squeezed in-between Luna and Sharla, the last one jumping back and bumping into me, sending me crashing to the floor.

"It's that kid again!" Luna shouted, pointing at the retreating form of the orange-haired boy, completely unaware that I was sitting on the ground.

I watched how Shingo then took a wrong turn, and crashed against a security fence that was preventing people from entering the basement of a building to our left, that looked more like a parking lot. I gasped and quickly stood up, running towards him with Luna and Sharla at my heels. Shingo was sitting on the ground, holding his pounding head under his blue helmet, wincing slightly.

"Are you ok?" I asked him worriedly as I knelt down beside him.

"Yeah, somehow," he replied truthfully, looking up at me with a grateful smile.

"I see, then it's all right," I told him, sending him a closed-eye smile.

"That's an interesting vehicle there," Luna suddenly told him, inspecting the crushed scooter closely.

"Oh this? This is my invention. This thing actually uses gasoline," Shingo told us proudly, standing up and removing his helmet.

"What! Fossil fuels? Doesn't that have to be regulated by the colony? And there's also the problem with air pollution," Luna asked outraged, turning to look at Shingo with shocked eyes.

"I wish you wouldn't put down personal hobbies. My actions alone won't cause a large effect on anything," Shingo told her while he fixed his glasses, refusing to look at her since she had hurt his pride.

"But-" Luna started to say, before she was interrupted by a louder voice coming from somewhere near.

"What? Try saying that again!" the male voice shouted from under the basement of the parking lot, right across the metallic wall.

"That sounded like Howard," I suddenly said, making my friends to turn around and peer over the wall.

I mirrored their actions and was surprised that I was actually correct. Howard with two of his friends, one of them having short brown hair and the other one short orange hair, along with Bell standing on the sidelines had blocked Kaoru's way down there.

"You guys are really worthless," Kaoru repeated himself, not even caring to look at the gang standing in front of him.

"You! Do you think that nothing will happen after going against us in school?" the boy with short brown hair asked, glaring at Kaoru.

"If Howard's dad feels like it, he can not only make you leave school, but the colony, too!" the one with orange hair now said, raising his fists at his direction.

"Pointless. Makes me wanna throw up," Kaoru stated emotionlessly, moving to walk past the bullies, but at one of Howard's commands, the brown haired boy launched at Kaoru, moving his right fist to strike him.

That's when Kaoru took action, grabbing the boy's hand and twirling it so that it was immobilized at the boy's back. "I don't have time to deal with scum like you. Get out of my way!" Kaoru demanded, tossing the whining boy towards Howard, who just tossed him away too.

"Everyone get him!" Howard cried desperately, glaring at Kaoru.

It was just then that Luna came running to the scene, standing in-between Kaoru and Howard. I looked at her confused, since I had thought she was still up here with me, and when I turned to look at my friends, I discovered they had all moved a little bit closer to the fight.

"Stop this! Fighting isn't good!" Luna tried to reason with them, stretching her arms out trying to keep some distance between the aggressors and Kaoru.

"You're in the way! Move!" Howard hollered at her, motioning with his left arm.

"I won't move! And it's cowardly to have this many against one!" Luna said, standing her ground.

"Shut up! I can just ask my dad to take away your scholarship!" Howard threatened her with the same lame thing he had used against me when I first got here, while pointing at her mockingly.

"If you want to do that you can go ahead! I won't lose to something like that!" Luna said, emphasizing with a movement of her left hand, still standing in front of Kaoru.

"_Baka! Everybody knows you can't just walk in like that in a fight! If everything goes wrong, then Kaoru would be more occupied trying to protect you instead of fighting back! What can I do?_" I thought, still watching from above intently.

That's when I noticed another boy, this one with short black hair, sneaking up from behind Kaoru and Luna, holding a barrel above his head.

"This girl!" he said aloud, before hurling the barrel towards both kids, who turned around taken by surprise.

"That's cheating!" I shouted as I used my hands for impulse on the wall and swung my legs over it, aiming for the barrel.

Luckily, I reached it in time and kicked it away from my two friends still in the air, before landing skillfully beside them as they looked at me in awe, and that's when the real fight broke off.

Kaoru pushed Luna aside as he started to fight with the brown haired boy and Howard, as I handled the orange and the black haired ones. However, as Kaoru pulled one of his opponents to trip him, his foot slipped with the substance that had spilled out of the small barrel, sending him tumbling to the floor.

When I saw this, I pushed the orange haired boy away and stood in front of Kaoru in a defensive position, covering his back while he recovered from the fall. I realized a little too late that we had both sent our opponents crashing into a table full of tools, from where the boy I was fighting with took a big red toolbox and threw it at us after cleaning his bloody nose with the back of his hand. Kaoru quickly crouched and flipped backwards evading the toolbox, while at the same time I jumped to my right, landing on my hands and flipping forward in order to land on my feet.

Thanks to that, we all discovered that the liquid coming out of the barrel was actually gasoline, since it caught on fire when the metal from the toolbox emitted a spark once it collided with the ground. We all stared in shock how the fire started to spread over to where Luna, Sharla, and Shingo were standing, near the steps of a staircase.

"Luna, Sharla! Run!" I yelled over to them, and almost immediately the fire separated Luna and Sharla from Shingo, who ran to the opposite way leaving both girls trapped in the staircase.

"I had nothing to do with this!" Howard said cowardly, as he started to run away, quickly followed by his friends.

As I called over the two girls worriedly, I noticed that under the staircase were stowed four more containers of either gas or more gasoline, and my friends were standing right on top of them.

"Luna, Sharla! Run to the very top!" I instructed them, receiving a quick nod from their part.

I hurried them as I saw that Sharla could not run very well, and Luna had to drag her by her hand. I directed my gaze worriedly from the containers to the two girls, over and over again. It was just until they had reached the top that the gas containers finally blew up with the fire surrounding them, causing a huge explosion to form a few feet away from me. I tried to shield my face with my arms from the pieces of wood and metal that came flying over at me from the stairs, which were now destroyed, though I still ended up with deep scratches on my cheeks and arms, even on my exposed stomach.

"Sharla! Luna!" I called over to them, surprisingly not feeling the cuts on my skin.

I sighed relieved once I saw Sharla standing up and starting to press a red button to open the door that the stairs led to as Luna looked around them trying to see what she could do. I looked down to my feet and found a bent piece of metal that she could use as a lever to pry the door open. I bent down and picked it up, Shingo quickly running over to my side.

"What are you doing?" he asked me as if I had gone nuts.

"You go and call the fire department," I told him, right before I sprinted over to where my friends were trapped, getting as close as the fire would let me.

"It's dangerous! You can't do anything!" he called after me, reaching out to try and stop me even though I was already there.

I didn't notice Kaoru listening to our conversation, and he quickly started to look around for the fire alarm. He finally found it and rushed towards it, breaking its glass with a hard punch from his fist.

"Luna! You can use this to open the door!" I called over to her just as the alarm started to sound all over the place.

Luna nodded and grabbed the metal piece I had thrown at her, stabbing it in the indent of the door and putting pressure to it. However, just as she was doing it, the lower part of what was left of the staircase gave away, sending Luna and Sharla sliding down to the fire. Luna managed to grab the metallic railing and Sharla's hand, making both of them to hang on for dear life. I took a step forward, deciding to rush into the fire if they fell and get them out of there before they were incinerated, even if I ended up with a ruined skin.

"It's no use, we won't be saved!" Sharla said hopelessly, her feet dangling dangerously close to the fire below.

"Don't give up!" Luna said in-between groans of effort for trying to hold Sharla away from the fire as much as she could. "Shingo! Can you use a grazer!" Luna suddenly shouted over at the young boy, who was standing behind me, watching the scene in shock.

"What? I'll try!" he replied, rushing over the big machine standing on a corner of the basement.

I yelped in fear once the stair lowered itself even more, making Sharla to completely hang on the air, Luna almost falling off the stairs as well.

"Sharla, don't let go!" I begged, holding my hands in front of my chest as I looked at them with concerned eyes.

A sudden crashing noise caught my attention, making me to turn and see the grazer Shingo was riding buried under a small pile of boxes. Once I saw Shingo was not hurt, I turned to see my two friends back on the top of the stairs, apparently safe.

Well, I spoke too soon. The part of the stairs attached to the wall started to give out too, making the staircase to bend downwards dangerously. Luna and Sharla held on to the railing, the only thing that kept them from plummeting down towards certain death.

"Over here!" Shingo then shouted, turning our attention towards him.

My face lighted up in amazement once I realized he had managed to make the machine work, and he rode it closer to the fire to try to rescue the girls.

"Bring it closer! Hurry!" Luna said, reaching out in a desperate attempt to grab the platform sticking out of it, though it was still far away.

"I can't get any closer!" Shingo cried over desperately, and as I looked down, I found the wheels of the machine being stopped by one of the working bands attached to the ground. A gasp of surprise coming from Luna made me look up again, in time to see a big hook heading to their direction.

"Sharla, hold on to me tightly!" Luna told her hurriedly, making sure she was safely clinging to her back, but just as Luna reached out to grab the hook, she realized it was too far up, and it soon swung back over to the platform Kaoru was standing on.

I bit my lower lip worriedly as I turned my back to a very shocked Luna and ran over to the closer stairs in order to reach Kaoru. I rushed over to him and stopped by his side, panting a bit.

"Bring the hook back to us, quickly!" I told him, quickly looking at him before turning to check on Luna and Sharla.

This was bad, the stairs wouldn't last longer, and both girls were already sweating because of the heat. I carefully managed to stand on the thin railing protecting the platform Kaoru and me were currently in, readying to catch the big hook while keeping my balance.

"What are you doing!" I heard Kaoru ask behind me, clearly thinking I had lost my marbles. Maybe I had, considering what I was about to do.

I didn't care to answer him though, as I saw the hook coming nearer, and quickly jumped forward fortunately taking a good grip on the hook. I threw my legs over it and let the upper part of my body hang loose once I had secured my legs on it. I then started to balance the huge thing with my arms and stomach, each time getting closer to where Luna stood looking at me completely shocked. I finally managed to be close enough to reach my arms out in her direction, a couple of feet separating us now. Luna jumped forwards towards my outstretched hands at the exact same moment that the stairs finally fell down and I luckily managed to grab her wrists. We probably looked like those circus people on the trapeze right now.

My left eye then closed in pain as I winced when the burning stings I felt on my stretched stomach reminded me of the cuts I had, not to mention the pain I was starting to feel under my knees. Luna saw this and her expression changed into horror, realizing I was not going to resist any longer. But I wasn't that stupid, and I only let go once I saw that we were right above the circular platform from the grazer, making us all land safely but painfully on it. I could only kneel there, holding my stomach with my right hand and supporting me up with my left hand, trying to catch my breath.

"Sharla, are you injured?" I heard Luna ask the shy girl, and I think Sharla just shook her head, since she was too shocked to say a thing.

"Thanks, Shingo!" she called over to the short boy sitting by the controls.

"Heh, it's no biggie," he replied, rubbing underneath his nose with his finger in a modest way.

I looked up and found myself staring at Kaoru, who was leaning on the railing with a relieved smile gracing his lips.

"And thank you Kimiko, we would have been torched if it wasn't for you," Luna then thanked me, turning so that she was facing me, though she had to look down at me. "Kimiko! You're bleeding!" she suddenly gasped, lifting her right hand to cover her mouth.

"Don't worry, they're just scratches," I told her with a small smile, making a single drop of blood to slid down my cheek from the cut I had on my cheekbone.

**°°TT°°TT°°**

The loud sirens of the ambulances and firefighters that were nearing from the streets could be heard over the basement of the building we were currently in. Curious people had already started to watch the scene from over the security fence, and I got surprised once I realized that they were A LOT. As the firefighters extinguished the fire that had consumed the whole staircase, the medics had carried me over to a stretcher where they were already treating my cuts.

"This is all thanks to you calling them, Shingo!" I heard Luna thanking the small kid as she sized him from his shoulders, bending down to look at him eye to eye.

Just at the same time a firefighter wrapped Sharla with a blanket, walking her over to where I was sitting still being surrounded by freaked out doctors.

"Huh? I was too busy to do that," Shingo explained, making Luna to let go of him and straighten-up to her normal height.

"What? Then who?" She asked completely shocked and confused, tilting her head to the side.

"It could have been Howard…" Shingo speculated, scratching his left cheek in thought.

"Or, it could have been-" I started to say, but my voice got stuck in my throat once I saw our savior walking away from the scene, heading towards the street.

Luna looked around, trying to find the source of my sudden quietness, and surely enough she too saw Kaoru walking up the ramp leading towards the basement. She then turned to see me, completely spacing out and not paying attention to the doctors while my eyes were still fixed on the place Kaoru had been walking just a couple of minutes ago.

"Miss, you are ready to go," I barely heard the doctor next to me say while my mind was still replaying that tiny glance I had shared with the lonely boy.

He had been smiling…slightly, but he still had…now the question was, why? Was he proud of himself? Or is it that he really felt relieved that we were all safe? Or maybe Luna had caught his eye, being the new girl in school?

"That would be funny," I said under my breath with a small smile, finally jumping off the stretcher and heading towards my friends, shaking all this thoughts away.

As I sent a last look outside, I finally noticed that the sun had set just a few hours ago, the artificial sky already having a lame imitation of the brilliant stars that were dreaming outside the dome. It was just then that I realized the gravity of the situation.

"Eh! Is it already this late! Ah, Koinu is so going to kill me!" I exclaimed during my panic state, making my friends to look at me strangely.

"Koinu? Who's that?" Sharla asked me, looking utterly confused.

"Oh, he's my pet-robot. Didn't I say anything about him?" I explained, rubbing the back of my neck sheepishly.

"Then it would be better for me to go as well, my parents must be worried," Sharla decided, handing back the blanket she had been wearing over her shoulders.

"Yeah, I must be going too," Shingo added, fixing his glasses on the bridge of his nose.

"Let's start heading out then!" Luna suggested happily turning around and starting to walk in front of us.

We followed her silently, each one of us deep in thought. Once we stepped outside the building, the cool night breeze greeted us straight on the face. We kept on walking under the street lights that were illuminating the electric bands, and after a while both Shingo and Sharla had to turn to go to their respective houses, leaving both Luna and me alone. We walked silently for some time, wondering who of us was going to take a turn first.

"How are you feeling, Kimiko-chan?" Luna suddenly asked, making me to send her a confused stare. "I mean those cuts you had. They seemed to be very painful," she explained herself, motioning to my stomach to emphasize.

"Oh, I can no longer feel them actually," I answered, poking my flat stomach to prove my point.

"How did you heal so quickly?" she wondered, inspecting my bandages and seeing that there was no blood painting them.

"They weren't really deep," I told her with a smile, rubbing my head ashamed. To be honest, not even I knew that. I had always been like a magnet for sicknesses, hence all those pills I had to take.

"I see…and where did you learn all those cool moves?" Luna kept on asking, apparently feeling better now that the depressing silence was gone.

"I took some martial art classes a few years ago; it was a piece of cake!" I decided to brag a little bit, to add some humor to our conversation.

"Especially since Kaoru was helping you out," Luna managed to say in-between laughs, making me to immediately stop my giggling once it transformed into coughs.

"Now that you mention it…I never knew he knew how to fight too," I said deep in thought once my coughing stopped, making Luna to also stop laughing and look at me with a know-it-all face.

"So, Kimiko-chan, do you like him?" she asked me out of the blue, a sly smirk on her face, and her eyes sparkling evilly.

"What? N-No! Don't be ridiculous, I hardly even know him! We haven't talked at all!" I stuttered out of pure surprise, shaking my hands in front of me as if to dismiss such an idea.

"Aw, you two would look cute as a couple," she said now dreamily, small hearts dancing around her head, making me sweat drop as I mushroom sighed hopelessly.

"It's nothing like that. I just feel curious, since he hasn't talked to anyone I know of," I explained, playing with one of my long bangs.

"Yeah, now that I think about it-Huh? We're here already?" she interrupted herself, looking up at the apartment buildings surrounding us.

"You live here too?" I asked her, stopping my walking and letting the electric band take me towards my building.

"Un, in the third lime-colored building," she nodded at me, pointing towards my building.

"That's where my apartment is too!" I said excitedly, wondering how much more in common we actually had.

"Really? Then why didn't I see you in the morning?" she asked me, walking towards the band that led us right to the door of our building.

"I got up early, and didn't have to jump the doors just before they were closing," I told her, eyeing her from the corner of my eyes.

"Eh! How did you know?" she asked surprised, her eyes wide in shock.

"I arrived late on my first day of school as well. I guess its tradition already…" I told her with a shrug while we headed towards one of the elevators, finding the building already quiet, filled with people sleeping or eating supper. The elevator doors were already closing when I remembered what Koinu had told me in the morning.

"Now that I think about it…you must be the new neighbors Koinu was talking about," I mentioned as I pushed the button with our floor number printed on it.

Luna saw the number and smiled expectantly, nodding in agreement. The elevator eventually stopped and the doors opened, letting us step outside. We barely took 7 steps on the carpeted floor when two doors suddenly flew open in front of us, one door to the right, and the other one to the left.

"Where were you! You had me worrying to death!" a knee-high white dog with black ears and a black spot on his left big blue eye, wearing a blue jumpsuit and standing on his hind legs, yelled over at me with his left fist raised in my direction.

"Do you have any idea of what time is it!" now yelled a pink cat with big dark pink eyes and yellow snout, wearing a magenta jumpsuit and also standing on her hind legs, reaching the same height and standing on the same position as the small dog and pointing her fist towards Luna. We both sweat dropped, looking over at our overprotective guardians.

"Chako! It's not that late!" Luna quickly argued back, a tick mark appearing on both her head and the cat's.

I was starting to chuckle when the itching at my throat caused me to cough again, quickly raising my hand to cover my mouth.

"If you had arrived earlier, this wouldn't be happening," Koinu scolded me, green and blue eyes closing in frustration.

I smiled apologetically at him and turned to look at the still bickering friends, waiting for a quiet moment in order to say my goodbyes.

"Um, I have to go now. See you tomorrow Luna," I said loud enough to make them stop their fight for a bit, both of them turning to look at me as if they had forgotten I was there.

"Oh, yeah! It's nice to know we are living in front of each other, that way it won't be so lonely anymore!" Luna replied, starting to push the still bickering Chako into her apartment.

"Goodnight! See you tomorrow!" Koinu waved at them, as I too pushed him inside of our own apartment.

I closed the door with a sigh and returned the digital key to its place as I slipped off my shoes, walking towards the kitchen feeling as tired as I could. I let myself fall limply on one of the wooded chairs, eyeing the food Koinu had already placed on the table, my pills already there as well.

"You know I would give you some dog snacks if you didn't eat just sugars," I told my bicolor friend, starting to munch boringly at my food while eyeing the robot that had another fruit juice already in its possession.

"Nah, don't worry about it. I know you love me!" he chirped happily, smiling widely at me. I kept on eating while Koinu watched the news on the TV that was resting on one of the counters.

"Tell me, Kimiko-chan, what exactly happened today?" Koinu finally asked me after a long silence.

I looked up from my almost gone dinner and found myself staring at the building I had just been in, the reporters still trying to guess why the basement had caught on fire.

"Um, well, Kaoru and I got into a brawl with Howard," I quickly summarized what happened, deciding that the beginning was the most important.

"A fight, huh? You know I don't like you to be involved in those kinds of things. Why was it this time?" Koinu kept on interrogating me, not at all surprised by the news.

"You know Howard, always wanting to get revenge and all. The fight was actually with Luna and Kaoru at first, but I butted in to make it fair," I explained, shrugging it all off while I stood up to put my empty plate in the sink.

"When will you learn?" Koinu breathed out as he too put his empty glass in the sink, deciding to wash the dishes in the morning.

"Don't worry; I just got some tiny scratches. I'm not going to bleed to death," I reassured him with a small chuckle, stepping on the elevator that took me to my room alongside my pet-robot.

I took my pajamas and went behind my yellow folding screen with purple flowers to change, hanging my clothes on top of it. I then stopped short in the middle of my room once I realized I had forgotten to brush my teeth, letting out an aggravated sigh since I had to step again on the elevator and go down. I then quickly brushed my hair and teeth, finally being ready to go to bed.

When I was back in my room, I found Koinu reading a magazine comfortably lying on my bed. I slipped under the covers and just sat there watching him until he stood up and placed the magazine on my drawer, beside the picture I had with my parents. I turned off the lights and curled under my bed sheets, Koinu doing the same by my stomach. I bent over and placed a kiss on top of his head, scratching gently behind his ears, before lying back again.

"Oyasumi," I whispered sweetly at him, finally closing my eyes and falling into a deep, pleasant dream.


	2. Chapter 2: Evasion Is Impossible?

**_A/N: _**Apparently this anime is not very well known...Oh well, it's fun writing about it! XD Here's the next chapter~ The next chapter is 3/4 ready already, so I won't take too long to update again =D Thanks for those who reviewed! 3

_**Disclaimer:**_ Uninhabited Planet Survive rightfully belongs to NHK. I only own my OCs which appear in this story.

* * *

**°°TT°°TT°°Chapter 2: Evasion Is Impossible!°°TT°°TT°°**

**~*~Kimiko's POV~*~**

A week has passed since I first met Luna and since the fire accident, which was originated thanks to the brawl Kaoru and I had against Howard's gang. Eventually, Howard's father put his hand in behind the scenes, and the accident was swept under the rug, so to speak.

BUT! I guess it was a good thing, fair or not, because thanks to that, the school trip I've been waiting for was not canceled. And talking about the school trip…

"Koinu-chan! Do you mind handing me my things from the bathroom?" I asked my loyal friend from over my bed, where I had displayed what I was going to pack for the trip.

"Here!" He chirped happily, handing me my shampoo, towel, comb and small mirror for me to pack in my purple backpack.

Just in that moment, a ringing sound made me lift my head in surprise, making me to forget my current actions.

"Are the cookies done already?" I asked Koinu, not actually believing I had spent so long in packing.

"Why don't you go and take them out of the oven while I finish packing up for you?" Koinu suggested kindly.

"Usu!" I sent him an exaggerated grin as I saluted him.

I jumped off the bed and rushed to the kitchen, humming happily to myself as I did so. I sighed in relief once I was certain that the cookies were not burnt, but blinked confused once I realized that there were more cookies than the ones we could eat.

"Koinu!" I called over to him loudly, receiving a faint 'coming' from the second floor.

I waited impatiently until the circular elevator landed on the floor I was in, Koinu stepping off in a very elegant manner right after.

"What's the matter?" he asked me innocently, ignoring the weak glare I was sending him quite efficiently.

I sighed and uncrossed my arms, leading him into the kitchen and pointing an accusing finger to the rather big tray of cookies.

"Can you explain why there are so many cookies?" I asked him suspiciously. "We can't eat that much alone," I added as an after thought, trying to prove my point.

"Of course not! They are for Luna and Chako too! We'll be taking them over," he exclaimed surprised, missing the fact that he had spilled information I didn't know.

"We're taking the cookies to their house?" I asked him owlishly, though I figured it out quite quickly. "You invited yourself again, huh?" I asked him darkly, sending him a scolding glare from under my bangs.

Recently, he had gotten used to visiting our neighbors using any excuses he could think of, no matter how lame they were. He wouldn't tell me why no matter what I did, so I just tried to stop him to prevent him from causing problems to Luna.

"Nope! Chako invited us this time," he answered while pouting, crossing his arms over his chest and turning his back to me.

"Well, then let's go before it's too late!" I exclaimed happily, completely changing my mood once I discovered that we were actually invited for supper. "We've finished packing, right?" I asked him again.

"Un, I've just finished!" Koinu told me while he proceeded to put the cookies into a nice box.

I waited for him by the door and followed him out before closing the door to our apartment. He walked ahead and rang the doorbell of the apartment right in front of ours, and we both waited until the door finally opened. I had to look down in order to see the one who had opened the door, and I was not at all surprised to see the small pink neko smiling widely at us in greeting.

"Come on in!" she told us excitedly as she stepped aside, allowing us to pass through the door. "Luna is upstairs, packing up her things," she informed us, pointing to an exact same elevator as the one in my apartment.

"Thanks, we brought some cookies," I said gratefully, taking the red box Koinu was handing me and giving it to Chako.

"My my~! You shouldn't have~!" she said quite forcefully, pressing her paw against her cheek and fanning her eyelashes at us.

It was quite obvious she was delighted to have home baked cookies, but she wanted to seem ladylike by feigning she didn't want them. Now I could see just how alike both pet-robots were.

"Just don't eat them all!" I laughed as I walked over to the circular elevator, quickly being followed by Koinu.

"I would never do such a thing!" Chako yelled at me in false indignation and she quickly placed the box of cookies on a counter and rushed to our side.

I giggled as we were pulled upwards alongside the elevator, and once we reached the second floor, which only consisted of the bedroom, we found Luna sitting on her bed while packing her extra change of clothes.

"Luna, we have visitors!" Chako announced as she ran to the bed and jumped on it, making Luna to turn towards us.

"Kimiko-chan! Koinu-kun! What are you doing here?" she asked us excitedly, as we waved timidly with one hand.

"I thought it would be nice if I helped you pack. Chako invited us to dinner anyway," I said sheepishly as I rubbed the back of my head, not really knowing what else to say. I had just learned we were coming a few minutes ago anyways!

"You're so kind! I'm actually having some problems, to be honest," she confessed, looking around at the mess she had made on her bed.

"You're taking too many things. We'll only be gone for two days!" I noticed, walking forward and taking a seat on the edge of the bed.

I proceeded to separate all the things that were unnecessary from the ones that Luna would actually use while on the trip, reducing quite noticeably the pile of stuff she was going to pack.

"I'm sorry for causing you this much trouble, Kimiko-chan. It's just that I've never been on a school trip before," Luna sent me an apologetic smile, watching while I ordered all her stuff in her brown backpack.

"It's no bother at all! I can't believe the day finally came!" I said excitedly, smiling widely.

"The thing is…is it okay that nobody heard about an incident like that where lives were on the line? It leaves me feeling unsatisfied," Luna asked grumpily, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring to the side.

"Huh? You talking about what happened with Howard's father?" I asked in confusion, not quite catching her change of subject.

"It's fine, ain't it? Thanks to that, you can go on the school trip you've both been lookin' forward to," Chako tried to reason with her, making me to share a confused glance with Koinu.

"That's one thing, and this is another!" Luna objected, puffing out her cheeks as a sign of irritation.

"Hai hai. But anyways, I'm jealous!" Chako said in a sweet voice, moving her paw up and down to emphasize.

"Huh? Of what?" I asked her, tilting my head to the right as I watched her in interest.

"Tomorrow's the long dreamt-on trip! A tasty trip from planet to planet. It'd be nice if they had a hot spring too!" she exclaimed cheerfully, standing up on one foot and spreading her arms to the sides.

"Now see here! We're not going there to play! It's personal experience with planetary settlement!" Luna yelled at her angrily, not actually believing her pet-robot was thinking we'd be going on vacation.

"And I'll be there too…" Chako said tentatively, holding her chin with her paws.

"Huh?" Luna and I asked in unison, blinking at each other as if silently telling us we didn't understand the small cat.

"See, I can tidy up and do laundry and if anythin' happened, me bein' there would calm everyone's heart," she explained, gaining a giant sweat drop from both Luna and me.

"Hey, that's not fair! If that's the case then I could go too!" Koinu was quick to defend his rights, a small tick mark popping on his forehead.

"No way," Luna and I deadpanned, making them a mocking face in the process.

Taking these two in the trip? Yeah right, and probably getting expelled from school as a result.

"It'd be nice if you didn't talk like that," Koinu told us with a weak glare, being the first one to grab a hold of himself after the shock.

"Chako, you're going to mind the house while I'm gone," Luna ordered her guardian, inching her face closer to hers as if daring her to object, but Chako just stuck her tongue out at her as a reply.

"Still, I'm not convinced of leaving you alone for two days," Koinu told me, eyeing me as if doubting my judgment.

"I'll be fine. I'm going with my friends after all, and it'll be just two days," I assured him as I waved my hand up and down, dismissing the subject.

"Well, now that I've finished packing, why don't we go down and eat supper?" Luna suggested happily, receiving nods from our part.

We went down and talked about many things while we ate Chako's cooking, attacking the cookies we made right after. Not to be bragging or anything, but Koinu's chocolate chip cookies are the best in this colony.

Just like any other time I had come to Luna's apartment, Koinu and I had to leave once we realized it was late at night. This day, however, was more important for us to get a good night's sleep, seeing as we had to wake up early in order to catch the early shuttle to arrive early to school. Yeah I know, too many earlys don't you think?

"I'll come to pick you up tomorrow morning then. That way, you won't be able to sleep in," I told Luna once we were on her doorway, saying our goodbyes.

"Usu! That will really help! Good night!" Luna said sleepily, waving goodbye to us until I closed the door to my apartment.

I was so tired that I didn't even bother to comb my hair, heading straight to my bed instead.

"You should sleep now *yawn* tomorrow is going to be a very agitated day…" Koinu told me quietly, and I was barely able to mumble an 'oyasumi' in response, falling into a deep sleep immediately.

**°°TT°°TT°°**

I woke up by the loud beeping sound my alarm clock was screaming by my ear, surprised once I didn't feel Koinu's weight somewhere around my legs. Guessing he was already making breakfast, I quickly got into the shower and changed into the clothes I had chosen for the trip. Instead of my usual kaki pants, I was wearing tight kaki shorts that reached about my mid-thigh and I was wearing another black tube top, only that this one had light purple linings.

"Koinu! Is breakfast rea-" I was calling out to my friendly pet, but stopped short once I stepped out of my elevator and noticed that he was nowhere in sight.

Not in the kitchen, or the living room, or the bathroom. I sighed and walked towards the table, finding my breakfast waiting for me on top. I ate alone as I waited for my pet-robot to make his appearance, thing that never happened. I turned to the clock and gasped once I realized I had to be knocking on Luna's front door right about now. I rushed to the bathroom to brush my teeth and pulled on my light purple jacket on as I did so. I then stumbled to my front door and pulled on my white tennis shoes that had two purple lines running down the sides and picked my already packed backpack up.

My door slid closed the moment I stepped out of my apartment, and I crossed the hallway in two long strides, banging on my neighbor's door right after. As I waited for her to open her front door, I curiously weighted my backpack, strangely feeling it a little bit heavier than yesterday.

"Morning! Sorry if I kept you waiting, but Chako was no where to be found!" A smiling Luna suddenly pulled the door open, snapping me out of my thoughts.

"I-Ie, don't worry about it!" I smiled sheepishly, waving my hands in front of me as I stepped back in order to give her space to come out. "I had just arrived!"

"Well then! We better get going if we don't want to get stuck in the morning traffic!" Luna cheered, grabbing my right arm and dragging me out of the building.

It was amazing how she was right about the morning traffic. As we sped through the electric bands, I could see the angry faces of the grown-ups popping out of their flying cars' windows, the loud beeping of their honks ringing in my ears. It was even difficult to find free spaces for us to run through in the bands, and those were hardly ever used!

However, we managed to get on time to the station to catch the shuttle that was going to take us to the space port. Because we were just a bit late, we missed the opportunity of getting comfy seats, so we had to stand in the middle of our compartment. To our grief, more people climbed onto it in each station until it got crowded enough for us to be smashed between all the elbows, backs and even stomachs.

I could hear Luna complaining behind me, but I was so immobilized that I couldn't even turn my head to see her. The shuttle eventually made a sharp turn, sending everyone sliding to the left. Luna and I screamed as we felt our lungs being squeezed until there was no more air inside of them, but just as it stopped, the train reached a new terminal and most of the passengers got off, leaving only about five people on the train compartment we were in.

"I thought I was gonna die…" Luna mumbled shakily, her knees buckling underneath her from the shock.

"I couldn't even think at all!" I whined from the floor, where I was kneeling after I had been pushed by the massive wave of people the shuttle had just dropped off in the last station.

We turned to look at each other and broke into a fit of laughter once we discovered that our hair was a real mess. Luna helped me up and we fixed each other's hair while giggling, finally managing an almost perfect result.

"Luna! Kimiko!" A voice suddenly called out to us, sounding throughout the shuttle.

When we turned to see who had called us we were greeted by Sharla, who was waving at us from the other side of the compartment.

"Sharla!" We exclaimed excited, running up to meet her at the middle of the shuttle.

"We got on the same shuttle. Did you get hurt?" She asked us smiling, also running to meet us. I bet she saw us in our shameful state after the compartment was emptied.

"It was packed pretty tight, wasn't it?" I said sheepishly while rubbing the back of my head, not answering her question.

"But Sharla weren't you going to have your papa see you off?" Luna asked her worriedly, taking her by the arm and guiding her to the seats displayed on the sides.

"The thing is, he said he had a meeting all morning. On top of that, he said the taxi wouldn't make it in time, and to take the shuttle," she explained to us, resting her hands on her knees and looking down.

"It's incredibly full down there too…" I mused, twisting my neck so that I could take a look at the packed street below us before it got out of sight.

"Yes, yes! The shuttle is the most reliable way!" Luna joked, pointing her index finger up as she winked at us.

We kept on staring at each other until we finally laughed, easily lightening the mood.

"That's a well-worn backpack isn't it?" Sharla suddenly noticed, pointing curiously at Luna's old brown backpack which was resting beside her.

"My dad used this. Isn't it cool!" Luna answered excitedly, lifting the backpack up and showing it to us.

"It must be really important to you! It sure is pretty!" I said with a close-eyed smile, knowing just how important anything was just by the fact that it once belonged to one of your parents first; even more in our situation.

However, I could easily guess Sharla didn't think the same by the face she was making from having the old bag so close to her face.

"But it seems somehow heavier than when I packed it yesterday…" She told us mysteriously, shaking the bag lightly.

"That's odd. I could swear I felt my bag heavier too…" I told her, exchanging confused stares with her.

Before she could even reply, everything in the room became dark as the shuttle passed through a tunnel, the tunnel that would take us out of the colony and to the plain planet ground outside of it.

"Sugoi! Look at that!" I exclaimed cheerfully as I kneeled on my seat and pressed my hands on the window like a little kid. It doesn't matter how many times I have seen the outer space already, I will always think it was beautiful.

My friends giggled at my antics but turned to see the view nonetheless. We could see the dark pitch of the universe, dotted with the brilliance of the stars; the REAL stars. We could even see real planets and their moons showing themselves over the horizon as if greeting us, just as excited as we were about the excursion. Everything outside that artificial dome was indeed enchanting.

The majestic space port didn't stay behind too. Our small colony seemed like nothing compared to it. On the outside, pathways formed out of light would appear each time a space ship was going to be launched into space, showing them which direction to take. All the buildings had huge beacons on the top, their powerful lights showing the other ships their way back home.

The inside was surely the biggest place I've ever been to as well. I gawked once we stepped out of our shuttle, spinning all over around just so that I could get a 360o view of where I was standing. The room was immense, neatly build up of shiny silver metal that gave off that feeling of cleanness housewives could only dream of, and there were yellow digital screens floating all over around, showing the time tables to all the travelers.

"Kimiko, you're staying behind!" I heard Luna yelling at me, making me to finally snap out of my daydreaming.

I searched for her desperately around the massive room, fearing I would never find her in time, and finally saw her red head, her right hand waving above her for me to see. Judging by the big amount of people standing near them, I guessed they had already found our classmates.

"S-Sorry!" I shouted over at her, breaking into a sprint in order to catch up with my friends.

"I'll announce the members of each group. From now on, stay with your group. So that nobody causes harm to our school's name, I'll have you all act with discretion," Menori was saying when I was finally close enough to my class to hear.

I quickly found Luna standing beside Sharla and went over to them, leaning on her shoulder to rest a bit. I was panting, though not because of my sprint, but the fear I had felt after thinking they had already left without me.

"Well then, first, group one: Bell; Shingo; Howard; Kaoru; Sharla; Kimiko; Luna; Menori." The blue haired girl listed in a monotone, not even looking up from her notes.

I quickly scanned the congregated students with my gaze, searching for my new teammates, and confirmed that all of them were already there.

"Continuing, group two: Jack; Michael; Tom; Maria; Kenji; Sarah; Stacy; Laura," Menori kept on reading the list, going on to group three right after.

"We're with Howard. This is terrible," I heard Sharla saying sadly from the other side of Luna, and I trained my blue orbs in her direction, finding her completely depressed.

"It's fine! If he says something, I'll whack him for you!" Luna reassured her, showing her how she closed her fist to prove her point.

"At least we're with people we know. Not to mention that we are together!" I giggled, winking confidently at them and showing them the peace sign with my fingers.

"True! There's no reason for feeling down!" Luna agreed with me, turning to look at Sharla with a big grin on her face.

Our shy friend smiled slightly and nodded her head at us, feeling a little bit more confident now after our encouragement.

"Alright everyone! Gather up with your teams!" Our teacher shouted through all the whispers after finally arriving, standing beside Menori before motioning her to do what he said.

"Yosh! Let's go!" Luna said eagerly, taking a hold of our hands and dragging us to where our group had started to meet.

Everyone stayed quiet as we waited for instructions though, mostly because we already knew each other.

"Each group, decide on a leader!" Our teacher instructed once more, before turning to resume his talk with the parents who had come to see their children off.

"Does anyone want to volunteer to be group one's leader?" Menori finally asked, scrutinizing us all in search of a sign that would tell her if someone wanted to take said role. "Howard, don't you want to do it?" She finally addressed him, having no other choice since no one appeared to want such a responsibility.

"Not particularly. Doing the roll-call and announcements seem like such a nuisance," he said lazily, leaning back on Bell as if screaming how bored he really was.

"Well, if we're talking about leadership, then Menori's definitely the one best suited," Shingo reasoned, pointing to the strict girl standing in front of us all.

It could have been a strange effect of the light, but I think I saw a sufficient smirk appearing on the girl's lips. However it was, I do think that having her as the leader is the best option.

"Agreed!" Luna chirped, raising her hand to show her content. Sharla and I nodded, giving the stoic girl encouraging smiles as we did so.

"Any objections?" Menori asked, turning to look at the boys once she was sure she had the girls' backup.

"Fine by me," Howard said coolly, running his pale hand over his blond locks.

Bell and Shingo nodded too, silently giving her their consent. The only one who didn't say anything was Kaoru, but Menori took it as a 'yes' since she was sure he would have complained if he didn't like the idea.

"Then I will serve as leader. We'll be boarding soon. Follow me," she commanded, bending down to pick a black sheath resting by her feet before starting to walk away.

Shrugging our shoulders, my friends and I started to follow her, the boys quickly doing the same. Menori guided us towards one of the many electric stairs which probably lead to a lower floor, a tunnel covering the upper part of them. From there, we stepped on a new band that transported us all the way to our ship, a tunnel made completely out of glass protecting us and giving us an incredible view of the space lurking outside. Shingo soon joined my friends and me in our talk until we finally walked into our ship, enjoying our company.

"Check your seat numbers printed in your tickets and head over to your seats. You can walk around as long as it's permitted by the staff," Menori informed us, walking over to her own seat.

"What seats did you get?" I asked my friends, turning around to look at them.

"We're sitting together!" Luna said excitedly, waving her ticket around childishly.

"I got to seat next to Menori," Shingo paled, sighing in disappointment as he started to walk away. "I better behave perfectly if I don't wanna go through hell…" He mumbled sadly, heading over to his seat beside Menori's.

"Where will you be sitting Kimiko?" Sharla asked me, gaining my attention as I shifted my gaze from Shingo to her.

I leaned over and read their seat numbers, looking down at mine to try and make the math.

"I'll be sitting in the seat behind the seat behind you, Sharla!" I giggled, their confused expressions being too much for me.

"Well, we'll be putting our bags away in the lockers by the entrance," Luna smiled at me, taking Sharla and walking back to the entrance of the ship.

I sighed once I was alone, brushing the passenger's room with my gaze. Seats were scattered all around, in groups of two, three and even four. There were a lot of people, mostly little kids running around excitedly while their parents chatted away on their seats, everyone waiting excitedly for the launching.

I walked over to my group, walking beside their seats in order to reach mine. Menori and Shingo were sitting at the front, but the next row was empty, the seats being those of Luna and Sharla. Behind them, Bell and Howard were sitting comfortably, waiting impatiently for the launch to begin. Already knowing what was awaiting me, I walked over to the last row of seats and was not at all surprised to see Kaoru sitting on the seat beside mine.

"_At least the trip will be silent for me_," I thought optimistically, actually relieved that I didn't get the seat beside Howard's.

"Hey!" I greeted the brunette kindly with a smile, dropping myself on the seat to his left.

Kaoru turned to look at me with no expression on his face, breaking eye contact after a few seconds without saying anything. I sweat dropped and smiled nervously, not knowing if that reaction meant that he accepted me being there or if he already felt annoyed by my presence. Sighing, I grabbed my bag and let it fall unceremoniously beside my seat, not at all expecting to hear a soft 'ittai' coming from it.

Widening my eyes, I bent down and picked my purple backpack, resting it on my lap. I fumbled with the zipper before yanking it open, only to be graced with the sight of Koinu's blue and green eyes. I blinked repeatedly, my brain apparently not being able to understand the data.

"K-Koinu!" I gasped, glaring at him as he waved his front paw shyly at me.

Kaoru turned to see me once he heard my voice again, reminding me that I was not alone. I sent him a nervous smile as I blushed, turning around next so that my back was facing him in order to have more privacy.

"T-This is a huge, funny, misunderstanding…" Koinu told me nervously, sending me a trembling smile as he played with his paws. "You see, I woke up at night and I accidentally and slept in here because I was too tired to reach the bed…" He giggled maniacally, telling me just how nervous he was for disobeying my orders.

"But you were up in time to make my breakfast," I glared at him, the information making him to stop short, realizing his mistake. "It's not as if I can leave you behind now…just stay here and don't make a sound!" I whispered with a sigh, carefully pushing his head down and zipping my purple backpack once more. I knew he was just worried about me…

"But it's too small and dark in here," he whined, pressing his front paws against the fabric of my bag.

"Don't ask for luxury!" I growled at my bag, holding it close to me in a hug.

I sat up-straight once more and stole a glance at Kaoru's direction, breathing out in relieve once I noticed he had been paying no mind to me. That was one of the benefits I received for sitting next to him: he lets you be and doesn't care in the least about your personal things.

"An announcement: The ship will momentarily takeoff from this shuttle station. Please take your seats and fasten your seatbelts," the voice of a woman officer resounded all around the ship at the same time that the icon of a seatbelt displayed at the roof turned green.

I watched as Luna and Sharla returned to their seats once I had buckled by seatbelt, wondering why Luna was still carrying her brown backpack. I thought they were going to leave them at the lockers…

Before we knew it, the long awaited launched began. The ship had already started to levitate without warning, aligning with the lighted paths the control tower had already provided. In an instant, we were soaring at the speed of sound through our current planet's atmosphere, the momentum pushing me against the back of my seat. I closed my eyes and hugged my bag tighter; getting a bit scared once I realized I had troubles for breathing, my breaths soon turned into a quick panting in a desperate attempt to get more oxygen into my lungs.

"K-Kimiko-chan! Y-You're c-crushing m-me!" I barely heard Koinu whimpering inside the backpack.

Fortunately, the speed decreased right after, allowing me to drop my arms to avoid damaging my best friend.

"The ship has left the gravity well. Artificial gravity will engage shortly. Please wait until then," the same feminine voice announced, the icon which was showing the fastened seatbelt changing into one of a loose seatbelt.

Not even a second later, the artificial gravity was turned on, letting my backpack fall back roughly on my lap since it had been levitating once I let it go. Finally being able to breathe again, the strong coughs I had been trying to refrain broke loose, making me to bend forward in a failed attempt to stop them.

"Take deep breaths," I heard Koinu whispering from inside my bag and I tried my best to follow his advice, soon being able to control my breathing again.

Sitting straight again, I leaned by head on the back of my seat as I sighed in relief, feeling my throat itching in complain.

"I didn't know you were sick," a monotone voice came from my side.

I turned to my right to see that Kaoru had watched my coughing fit, and he was still staring at me silently.

"I'm fine! It's not a cold," I managed to send him a small smile; not being able to believe that he had talked to me willingly.

"Hn," he mumbled, unfastening his seatbelt and standing up, leaving the room through a huge door.

"Hey, want to look around the ship with us!" Luna's smiling face suddenly popped up in front of me, breaking my trance.

"Sure," I mumbled, shaking my head to get rid of my shock.

I unbuckled my belt and stood up to follow them, hanging my backpack on my back. I followed my friends through the same door Kaoru had walked out through, all of us too busy with admiring the place to start a proper conversation.

"It's beautiful!" Luna commented as we stood beside a large window, watching how the innumerable stars moved with us. "Huh?" She mused, shifting her blue eyes to her right.

She started walking again, Sharla and me following without complains. Looking ahead again, I finally understood what had caught Luna's attention: Kaoru was standing in front of another window by himself, watching silently the moving stars as well. However, once we were near enough, I could detect some kind of sadness or melancholy pretty well hidden in his brown orbs. I would know about that…

"Hey, want to explore the ship with us?" Luna asked him with a smile, waiting patiently for his reply.

He turned his head to look at her, slowly shifting his gaze to Sharla and finally to me, as if analyzing us, before turning back to the window. Luna blinked at his actions and stared at him intently, almost as if expecting that the force of her gaze would make him stare at her once more.

"Well, maybe next time," I told him cheerfully, grabbing Luna and pushing her out of the scene before she pissed him off.

Sharla was right at our heels and I didn't let go of my red-headed friend until we were at a safe distance from the lonely boy.

"Hey, is Kaoru always like that?" Luna asked us in a quiet whisper, turning her head so that she could watch the brown haired boy over her shoulder.

"As far as I can remember, he almost never hangs out with people," Sharla confided her, sending him a cautious look over her shoulder as well.

"You sat beside him, right Kimiko? How is he like?" Luna asked me, finally fixing her eyes on me again.

"He likes to be alone," I answered simply, saying nothing but the truth.

Maybe he spoke to me because he thought I was weird or carried a horrible disease anyway. There was no need to make a bigger deal out of it.

"Let go of me!" A sudden yelled broke me out of my thoughts once more.

Looking down the railing of the stairs we were currently standing on, we caught sight of Shingo being lifted by his collar by a bigger man.

"What are you doing!" He screamed again as he squirmed in the air, trying his best to break free from the guard's strong grip.

"Can't you see? No entry beyond this point!" The guard said angrily, jabbing his thumb backwards to point at a sign hanging from the door behind him. It clearly read 'KEEP OUT, STAFF ONLY'. "Don't come 'round here again!" He finished, yelling directly at Shingo's ear.

"What's the problem! I just want to take a look!" Shingo yelled right back at his face after his quick recovery from almost ending up deaf.

"No way!" The guard mocked him, suddenly letting him go.

Shingo rubbed his sore behind after his hard landing on the floor, glaring at the back of the ship's worker until it disappeared through the door.

"Jerk! Nya~!" Shingo insulted him, sticking out his tongue towards the already closed door. He humped and crossed his arms, glaring daggers at the floor in his foul mood.

"Shingo, what happened?" I asked him with a light giggle gluing to my question, not being able to deny how cute the younger boy had looked a few moments ago.

"I just wanted to have a peek at the power plant. They don't know how to treat their costumers!" Shingo answered me with a pout, turning to glare at the door once more, not caring that his glasses had slid all the way down to the tip of his nose.

"So you say, but isn't this a little excessive?" Luna asked him with a wink, trying to reason with him. Wrong move.

"Of course not!" Shingo cried indignantly, glaring up now at Luna childishly. "But it seemed a little interesting," he admitted, a devious grin playing on his lips.

"There, there. We will sort this out," I assured him kindly, holding out my hand for him to take.

He smiled thankfully at me and accepted my offer, letting me pull him back to his feet.

"What, no entry?" A new voice broke into our conversation, making us to look around until we finally spotted Howard and his gang standing at the entrance to the arcade games, apparently being stopped by Menori.

"You must have been told during the pre-departure instructions. Entry into the amusement area is forbidden," Menori sentenced, standing her ground in front of the eight kids, not caring in the least that the multicolored flashing lights behind her took away a bit of her authority aura.

"But they said it would be a fun school trip. Don't contradict that now," Howard said nonchalantly, playing with his hair in a 'cool' way. What would his friends say about him if he got shooed off by a girl?

"Don't let me hear you say that again! Return to your cabin!" Menori ordered them menacingly, pointing at the right direction warningly.

Howard's brows twitched in anger as he held a glaring contest with his classmate, none of them willing to back off.

"Howard, let's go back," one of the boys finally surrendered, turning around to start his escape.

Howard's glare intensified before he finally looked away, defeated. "I don't care if your dad's in the space commonwealth parliament or whatever. Don't take that tone with me. You'll catch hell for this!" he threatened the purple-eyed girl as he walked away with dignity, being followed by his gang.

We watched silently as they paraded in front of us, taking the path we had just walked through. Menori then shifted her glare towards our small group, making a chill to run down everyone's spine.

"It seems like we won't be able to do anything for you, Shingo," I told him sheepishly as I stared cautiously at Menori, feeling a sweat drop sliding down the back of my head.

"Y-Yeah, don't worry about it," he stuttered, moving closer to me so that he could gain some confidence against the older girl.

"I heard they have a restaurant here. Why don't we go get something to drink?" Luna offered kindly, looking for any chance we could get in order to get out of our leader's vision.

We nodded rapidly, rushing out of that section of the ship and heading back to the tourist's area.

**°°TT°°TT°°**

Just like everything else in these times, the restaurant of the ship was magnificent. It was huge and had comfortable chairs and tables for everyone to sit at. The walls were covered by special screens that showed different natural sceneries, like beautiful waterfalls and shiny rivers and colorful flower gardens or forests. The air was filled with the delicious aroma of the food being served, and digital screens were showing the special combos every now and then.

"Our group is definitely the worst," Sharla complained from in front of me, across our table, taking a sip of her purple drink.

"That's it! They put all the problem children in one pack," Luna explained by her side, leaving her pink drink on the table to use her free hands to emphasize.

"Why would they do something like that?" Sharla asked, tilting her head to the side in confusion.

"If you put them in one group, and add in Menori, the school will have an easier time managing them," Shingo explained wisely by my left side, playing with his straw which was resting inside his green drink.

I looked down at my light blue drink, thinking over what my friends had just said. To my eyes, our group was not bad at all. There was the four of us, Menori and her awesome leadership, Kaoru and his quiet understanding, Bell and his shyness, and Howard and his ego. The only one I figured I could have trouble with was Howard, but it was not as if I was going to talk to him every minute of our trip…

"I see…Hold on! Does that mean I'm a problem child too!" Sharla suddenly understood, leaning over to Luna and pointing at herself incredulously.

"Naturally," Luna kidded her, holding out her palm like rich ladies would often do.

"Why?" Sharla whined as she went to tickle Luna, making her to squeal in laughter and slid sideways towards me.

I laughed too as I held her by the shoulders so that I wouldn't fall backwards out of my seat, but it was in that moment that the ship shook violently, making us jump off our seats a little bit. Shingo stumbled and held my back, keeping us three from sliding down.

"W-What was that!" I asked to no one in particular, gently pushing Luna to help her stand up.

"I don't know," Shingo told me as we all held onto the table to keep our balance, seeing as the ship was still shaking slightly.

"Everyone, gather around the teacher!" Menori came running towards us, right after the screens failed and showed nothing but static.

"Let's go!" Luna turned towards us, receiving determined nods as an answer.

I reached out and grabbed Shingo's hand before we followed Luna and Sharla, wanting to keep him close in order to protect him, my motherly nature showing without problems. We would tighten our grip in each other's hands every time the ship shook, trying to calm each other down.

"There they are!" Luna exclaimed as she pointed with her left hand towards our group, holding Sharla's hand with her right to not lose her in the crowd.

"Is everyone here?" Menori turned to ask us once we had reached their side, counting us mentally to make sure the group was complete.

"A large gravity storm is approaching. The ship will enter emergency wrap to avoid it. All passengers please move to the escape shuttles," the woman officer spoke through the speakers, keeping a calm tone to not alarm the passengers.

"E-Escape shuttles?" I mumbled in fright, unconsciously tightening my grip on Shingo's hand.

"Calm down!" A blond man standing in front of the crowd instructed over the high voices. "Do you have all your members? Groups which are confirmed, move to the escape shuttles."

"I'm Levinson, the ship's captain," A new voice sounded through the speakers, immediately calming everyone down. "If we perform warp navigation, we can definitely avoid the gravity storm. Take care during the evacuation to the escape shuttles. Everyone, please move calmly."

"This is also a time to calmly take the initiative. Let's go," Menori turned back to us, leading us over to the entrance that the blond official was pointing to.

Shingo and I followed behind Sharla and Luna again and Kaoru soon joined us silently. I felt myself getting more nervous with each step we gave closer to the shuttle, using all my willpower to refrain every painful memory trying to access my mind.

To my distress, Menori reached our escape shuttle and opened the metallic door, a small set of stairs appearing for us to step in. She entered gracefully, being careful of not hitting her black sheath against anything.

"Eh~ this is my first time in an escape shuttle!" Shingo said in excitement, letting go of my hand and rushing in to check it out.

I moved shyly to the side and allowed everyone to pass before me, my eyes not wanting to shift from the shuttle. Feeling a presence by mi side, I was able to distinguish a pair of black shoes with the corner of my eyes. Apparently, Kaoru was waiting for me to get in so that he could close the lid once we were all inside. He didn't say anything, but I could feel his harsh stare upon my frame.

Whimpering ever so lowly, I forced my legs to move and walk towards the door. Kaoru followed close behind me, almost as if herding me. I grabbed onto the bars of the stairs with shaking hands, slowly descending until my feet touched the floor of the shuttle. I stood up-straight and brushed the inside with my gaze, discovering that everything was made out of metal, apart from the seats which were made of a special fabric.

There were two lines of about seven seats by each side of the small hallway that led to the cockpit, where thousands of lights were flashing unceasingly; Howard and Shingo were already sitting on the pilot's and co-pilot's seats, admiring the controls. Well, it was most like Howard was playing with it.

"Howard! Don't press things recklessly!" Luna scolded him, leaning over the arch leading to the cockpit.

"Exactly," Menori contributed, leaning over to have a look as well.

I walked over to my seat and placed my backpack in the small net resting on the back of the seat in front of mine. Growing nervous with Howard's actions, I too walked over to Luna and unconsciously widened my eyes once I saw how many buttons Howard was pressing.

"Howard what are you-!" I tried to say, but the shuttle shook violently again, sending us stumbling to the side. Even the lights went off this time.

"Return to your seats quickly!" Menori told us, making Shingo to quickly get up and head over to the seat beside mine, quickly being followed by Luna who sat behind him.

"Shut up! Bell, get out my camera," Howard yelled over his shoulder.

"Camera?" Bell asked him confused, tilting his head to his left as he tried to understand what the arrogant boy was talking about.

"Yeah, I had you carry it around. Take one in commemoration," Howard replied nonchalantly, pointing to the brown bag Bell was indeed carrying around.

Getting what he was supposed to do, Bell searched the bag until he pulled out a silver camera, smiling in excitement after having done his job well. I gritted my teeth in anger and dug my fingernails on the metallic edge of the arch, canalizing my fear and nervousness through those actions.

"Don't fool around!" I screamed at them, turning back to the cockpit to glare at Howard.

"What? What are you getting out of shape for?" He teased me with a smug smirk.

I widened my eyes in shock, not expecting him to see over my disguise so quickly.

"An escape shuttle isn't a toy!" I snapped back at him, hardening my glare in a last attempt to hide my fear.

"Of course I know that," he told me tiredly, rolling his light green eyes at me.

"I don't think you do!" I retorted, but was stopped before saying anything else by another jolt.

I yelped in shock as my feet stumbled, sending me down to my knees as I held on to the arch for dear life. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe deeply, calming down just slightly.

"Howard! Come back here!" Menori called one last time, being unable to reach out and help me up to my feet.

"Stop ordering me around!" He yelled back at us in irritation, another toss silencing him before he said any rude remark.

"All passengers please remain in your seats and fasten your seatbelts," a feminine voice ranged throughout the shuttle, gaining our attention.

"Howard!" I barked his name in frustration.

"Everyone, fasten your seatbelts!" Menori commanded the rest of our group, who obeyed her without thinking it twice.

"I like it up here," Howard sentenced calmly, fastening his own seatbelt, telling me with his actions that he was not going to move from there.

I growled at him, getting ready to go and snatch him off of the seat if necessary.

"Kimiko, that's enough. Hurry up and take your seat," Menori told me seriously, giving up on Howard.

I looked down but did as I was told, managing to reach the seat in front of Kaoru before any more turbulence made me stumble and fall.

"Wrap will occur in ten seconds," the voice announced before starting the countdown.

I bent forward and picked up my backpack, feeling the need to have Koinu as close to me as possible. Hearing almost the end of the countdown, I hugged my bag tighter and closed my eyes, the sounds and movements reminding me greatly of the last time I was in an escape capsule. I whimpered as I shook uncontrollably, my stomach doing flips and turns making me feel sick.

"Is the warp over?" I heard Shingo ask beside me and I opened my eyes, only to lock them on the floor once I realized I was too scared to look.

"Wrong. Look!" Menori's voice raised in apprehension, making me to lift my blue orbs and follow her pointing finger towards the windows.

Our worst fears became true, and we all hasped in horror once we saw the black sky of the space and the red energy coming from the storm instead of the walls of our ship. Shingo quickly unbuckled his seatbelt to check up on things, but another jolt and gravity made him fly backwards. Quickly standing up, Luna stopped him with her arm and followed him over to the cockpit to have a better look.

"Nobody else leave your seats!" Menori warned Sharla, Bell, Kaoru and me.

Howard's, Luna's, Shingo's and Menori's voices were tuned out by the loud roaring of the storm, not allowing me to hear what was going on. Desperate to keep my mind busy to keep me from breaking down in fear, I decided to get over to my friends and help them anyway I could. I left my backpack back on the net in front of my seat and went to take off my seatbelt. The gravity soon lifted me out of it without problems so I had to press my hands against the roof to keep myself from floating aimlessly.

Without warning, the storm turned our shuttle to the side in that exact minute, sending me harshly against my seat's back. I let out a small scream in pain, soon being followed by one of the strongest coughing fits I had ever had. I closed my eyes as I gripped my seat's back, bending over in pain. I feared the fact that I couldn't breathe properly again...

It was just then that a hand suddenly shot out and clasped my wrist, pulling me down to Kaoru's lap. His strong arms wrapped themselves around me, keeping the gravity from sending me flying around. The movement of the shuttle became fiercer as we were pulled into the storm, being almost completely swallowed by it. Screams were heard when we were even left hanging upside down, but it all appeared to be distant to me as I entered some kind of daze.

I was holding on to Kaoru as if he was the only thing preventing me from going into the darkness, just like he was doing to me. My left hand was pressed tightly against my mouth as more coughs were coming out of it, my throat starting to burn painfully with each new cough. I curled myself closer to the brown haired boy and, as a small child, bawled. Tears started to drip off my eyelids as I finally succumbed to fear, flashes of my parents' dead filling my head.

This was all the same as last time. I was crying in fear, and Koinu was doing his best to make me feel better. The never ending darkness that filled the space was watching over us, the stars guiding us back home…

No. This time was different. I was not alone, and I was not going back home. This time, the space was not willing to help us…it had turned into a monster ready to devour us.

**~*~Flashback~*~**

_"Mommy, how long is daddy going to be gone?" The six years old girl asked her mother curiously, standing on her toes in order to look out the window of her office._

_"He'll be home soon. Why don't you ask him tonight when we contact him to his ship?" She told her daughter tenderly, stopping her work for a bit to look at the blonde._

_"Yeah…I'm just worried about him," the small girl confessed, resting her chin on her hands as she kept her blue eyes glued to the space._

_Smiling gently, the mother stood up from her seat and left her stethoscope on her desk. She walked over to her daughter and hugged her from behind._

_"You know? If you choose a star and ask it for a wish, it will come true," she whispered in the girl's ear as if telling her a secret._

_"Really!"_

_"Why don't you try?"_

_The girl nodded vigorously and joined her hands by her chest, closing her eyes before asking her star to bring her father safe back home._

**~*~End Flashback~*~**

"_Okaa-san…Otou-san!_" I called over to them in my mind, burying my head in Kaoru's chest to stay lost in my thoughts instead of living the frightening reality we were all experiencing.

"_The space is a wonderful, mysterious place, Kimiko. It can never be judged, and it will never take sides. All you can do is admire its beauty and hope for the best_," was what my dad used to tell me each time he went on a trip, and each time we stayed up until night after my mom passed away.

"_I know dad, I know. Please, make this all stop!_" I begged in my mind as I continued to cry, my coughing not stopping either.

Just as if the stars had heard my wish, the turbulence started to calm down until we were finally stable again. Our tense muscles finally seem to relax, but even so I stayed still against Kaoru, panting heavily once my coughs died down. My heart was beating at an incredible speed, desperately trying to bomb enough blood into my system after the shock I had. I could feel Kaoru's heart beating just as fast as mine underneath my right hand, and the way he kept on gritting his teeth told me that he had been as scared as I was.

Finally lowering my hand from my mouth, I shifted my gaze down to my palm once I felt something wet on it. I froze on my spot and widened my eyes once I saw the small amount of red liquid splattered over it, the burning sensation on my throat no longer being a mystery. I quickly closed my hand into a fist to cover up the evidence that showed I had coughed up blood before Kaoru saw it, not wanting to make a drama and worry everyone.

"Everyone, are you ok!" I heard Luna's voice call out to us, worry lacing with it.

We all turned to see her to show her we were alright, a relieved smile illuminating her face once she checked all of us quickly. Sensing I was abusing of Kaoru's personal space, I thanked him shyly before I held onto the seats' backs to keep my balance as I tried to stand up. My legs quivered like jelly, but I managed to follow my friends into the cockpit, all the while rubbing my left palm with my other one to erase any remaining blood stains.

"What's going up on there?" Sharla asked from in front of me, heading over to Luna who was staring out of the cockpit's window.

"Only our shuttle seems to have been left behind," Luna explained, turning to see us once we had all managed to squeeze into the not so small space.

"That can't be!" Sharla panicked, trembling in fear.

"But why just this shuttle?" Bell tried to understand, sinking us all into our own thoughts in an attempt to find a solution.

"Can't we use the instruments to know?" I asked in a low voice, still having my throat a bit sore.

"The instruments seem to all be broken," Shingo told me, shaking his head sadly.

I looked past him and discovered that indeed all the board was broken. Its bulbs, glasses and buttons were broken and some of them were even emitting a small line of smoke. I looked down to my white tennis shoes, trying to remember everything I had learned about navigating and ships from my dad.

"Shingo! After you came in here, you were touching all sorts of switches! It's definitely because of that!" Howard suddenly yelled, glaring daggers at the younger boy.

"If that's it, then how about you, Howard?" Shingo defended himself, closing his hands into fists to contain his anger.

"What's that!" Howard growled, leaning over and pressing his forehead against Shingo's as he growled, trying to intimidate him.

"Stop it!" I let out a husky yell, stepping up and pulling Howard away from Shingo.

"We'll look into that later," Menori told us severely, staring at us intently.

"Exactly! We still don't know if we're going to be rescued," Luna sided with the bluenett, placing a hand over my shoulder to calm me down.

"Shingo, can you figure out where the ship is?" Menori turned to the orange haired boy, knowing he was the one who knew more about technology.

"I don't think we should be that far from our colony yet, but…" the young boy started, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

"First off, we should turn on the rescue beacon," I told him softly, hating to know what someone needed to do if they somehow ended up lost in space, alone.

Shingo nodded at me enthusiastically and turned back to the board, bending down and pressing the right buttons. The screens in front of us suddenly flickered before completely turning on, displaying lots of green, blue, and orange symbols.

"I am the computer installed in this craft, M-17," a feminine voice suddenly spoke, apparently coming from the computer.

"M-17, where are we?" Luna was quick to ask, walking up to my side and staring up at the screen.

"That is impossible to determine," the mechanic voice announced, making me to raise an eyebrow. Weren't we supposed to be close to our colony?

"Can we send out the emergency beacon?" Menori asked, leaning forward in expectation.

"That is impossible," the voice answered again.

"This thing is useless!" Howard humped, slamming his fist on one side of his seat.

"Why is that?" Menori asked again, completely ignoring Howard. However, M-17 kept quiet.

"This craft will momentarily enter a planet's gravity well. Please, fasten your seatbelts," the computer suddenly announced, a red light turning on and off by its side.

"Gravity well?" Shingo asked me surprised, looking up at me in confusion.

"Did we get close to some planet?" Luna asked too, pushing herself up on the board to have a wider view through the window.

Her sudden gasp told us exactly what we needed, and we were all quick to follow her example. There, hiding in the darkness of the space, was a round-shaped, planet. Its surface looked blue from where we were standing, and it was covered with clouds. The dense shadows didn't allow me to check if it had any moons surrounding it, and no ring was floating around it either.

"Earth?" Menori asked by my side, leaning on my shoulder to have better support while she stood on her tiptoes.

"That's impossible," I shook my head, narrowing my eyes to try and see more of the unknown planet.

"Yeah, Earth already stopped being a blue planet," Shingo agreed with me from my other side, confusing Luna and Sharla who were sharing the same window as us.

"Then, what planet is that?" Luna asked us.

"The former Earth?" Shingo threw a guess, shrugging his shoulders as he did so.

"Are you saying we flew through time?" Sharla panicked, not imagining how we could have been able to do that.

"It might not be impossible in space," Shingo tried to defend his theory, knowing that nobody knew space in every detail.

"Have we come to the world of long ago?" Luna asked amazed, pressing further into the glass to have a closer look, trying to find some kind of clue that supported Shingo's guess.

"If so, what's going to happen to us?" Bell asked us worriedly, but none of us knew how to deal with the problem on hand.

"Stop being ridiculous!" Howard snapped; sweat already starting to drip from his forehead in preoccupation.

"I can't take it anymore! Will you give it a rest!" A new voice shouted from behind us, startling us all to death.

We all quickly turned around just to find a small pink cat staring angrily at us, shaking her fists furiously.

"Hurry up and do something!" She ordered.

I opened and closed my mouth repeatedly, no sound coming out from it whatsoever. Blinking repeatedly, to make sure it was not an illusion, I eventually managed to find my voice.

"C-Chako?" I gasped, turning to look at a really nervous Luna.

"That's not fair! How come I can't come out if she already has!" A new voice, this time a male's, broke into the conversation, the owner revealing himself as a white dog with black ears and eyes of different colors.

"K-Koinu!" Luna and I gasped at the same time, now staring at both pets standing on their hind legs, with eyes that threatened to fly out of their sockets. After all, we both thought that our corresponding pets were the only ones who had hid onboard.

"What are those things?" Howard asked, glaring down in disgust at our friends.

"Whaddaya mean, 'those things'? I have a proper name, you know? It's Chako!" The pink cat yelled at the rich boy, a tick mark appearing on the side of her head.

"It's not polite at all to call someone a 'thing', especially if it's a living being," Koinu sentenced with dignity, holding his chin up high and not even looking at Howard.

"I'm sorry! She's my pet-robot!" Luna quickly apologized, rushing over and picking up Chako, completely overhearing her complaints.

"If that one is yours…whose is the other one?" Sharla said in a shaky tone, pointing at Koinu in fear.

"It's rude to point at someone, you know?" My refined puppy scolded her lightly, crossing his front paws across his chest.

"I'm sorry, he's mine," I told my friends with a smile, walking up to my best friend and bending to his level, resting my hand on top of his head. "He sneaked into my backpack this morning without me noticing," I explained them, patting Koinu's head a bit too roughly as if scolding him.

"I would appreciate if you wouldn't make it sound as vulgar like that," he pouted at me, not at all angry at my petting.

"You thought it was okay to bring something like that along!" Howard told us harshly, glaring at us four intently.

"There he goes again," Koinu rolled his eyes. He had never liked to repeat his lessons twice.

"'Something'? I'm not a thing!" Chako yelled from Luna's arms, struggling to get free and charge at Howard in anger.

"I knew that, but there was a little mistake, and…" Luna tried to explain herself, placing her hands over Chako's mouth to shut her up.

"You knew! The shuttle getting left behind is that things' fault!" Howard concluded loudly, pointing an accusing finger at all of us.

"Now that's just silly," Koinu breathed out, looking up at Howard with bored eyes.

"It's obviously true!" Howard yelled in irritation to my friend.

"Howard, calm down! I won't allow you to talk that way to Koinu!" I quickly stood up, standing protectively in front of my puppy.

"You two are going to take responsibility for this!" Howard hollered at my face, having taken a few steps to plant himself in front of me.

"Don't be ridiculous! A shuttle wouldn't cut itself loose just because an extra animal got on!" I shot back at his own face, inching forwards as we glared knifes at each other.

"That's true!" Shingo helped me without thinking it twice.

"Then how come this happened!" Howard barked in frustration at him, motioning with his left hand to the shuttle.

"That's what we are trying to figure out!" I began to tell him, but a few coughs made me stop again. Fortunately, they stopped as quickly as they started so no one really noticed, or at least so I thought.

"Well, you're not doing much, are you!" Howard shifted his attention back to me, raising his fists unconsciously in anger.

"As usual, you're a barking dog," Kaoru suddenly told him coldly from over the farthest window, preventing me from having to scream at him again and hurt my throat even more.

"What !" Howard turned to him in anger, fixing his glare on him. However, Kaoru barely stared at him for a few seconds before turning to look out of the window again.

"More importantly, is it okay to be getting so close to the planet?" He asked us, reminding us of the closest problem we were facing.

Running back to stare out the windows, we discovered that the planet was indeed closer, seeing how it started to look bigger.

"This craft is beginning its approach to land on the planet. We will enter the atmosphere momentarily. All passengers please take your seats and fasten your seatbelts," M-17's voice suddenly resounded through the whole shuttle again, shifting our attention back to her.

"Landing?" Luna repeated in confusion, making sure she had heard right.

"Even though we don't know what planet that is?" Shingo turned back to me but all I could do was shrug, having no idea of what was going to happen.

"M-17, can we avoid it?" Menori asked the computer, knowing that our lives were at risk if that planet resulted to have poisonous gases or deathly things like that.

"It is impossible," the voice answered simply. "This craft will momentarily enter the atmosphere."

"M-17, are we equipped for that?" Shingo was the next one to ask, looking in concern at the destroyed board.

"Now landing under autopilot control," the feminine voice told us, calming Shingo slightly.

"Okay, everyone, let's take our seats," Menori turned back to us, starting to lead the way back towards the back part of the shuttle.

Our tranquility didn't last long though, a loud alarm and a small red light flickering on the screen crashing our hopes down once again. We all stared expectantly at the computer, wondering just what was going wrong now.

"State of emergency entered. Due to the damage to the ship, activation of autopilot is impossible," M-17 informed us, making me to grit my teeth. Was there anything possible for this computer!

"What did you say?" Luna asked in bewilderment, her dark blue eyes widening in horror.

"The gravity storm must have affected the computer," Shingo said, narrowing his eyes in concern.

"Computer system cannot return to normal operation. Reserve systems cannot be activated. Performing forced shut-down," the feminine voice kept on saying without a single stop.

"Wait! What do we do when we enter the atmosphere!" Menori let out in desperation, feeling responsible for whatever might happen to us since she was the group's leader.

"Computer system…down…" were the computer's last words before finally going death, all the screens turning off.

"What's going to happen?" Howard asked in fright, glancing outside the window towards the planet which was coming nearer and nearer each second.

I lifted my bright blue eyes to look at everyone, my heart stinging painfully once I did. Pairs of blue, green, and brown eyes were overflowed with emotions…fear, shock, and confusion. They were all my classmates, my friends, the only trace left of civilization I was sure we had left. There had to be a way of saving them, this just couldn't be the end of our story…of an adventure that had not yet even started…Or could it?


	3. Chapter 3: The Real Wind, The Real Sea

_**A/N: **_I'm alive! XD I'm so sorry for taking this long in updating, but school has been really eating most of my time T^T I'm trying my best to finish my other chapters, but I'm struggling to finish lots of essays first T^T It's incredible how 10 pages of fanfiction are written in less than an hour and then I take 3 days to finish a SINGLE page of an essay T~T Anyways, please enjoy this chapter too! 3

_**Disclaimer: **_Tear-chan owns nothing of Mujin Wakusei Survive, she only owns her OCs and the small plot twists she decides to give~!

* * *

**°°TT°°TT°°Chapter 3: The Real Wind, The Real Sea°°TT°°TT°°**

**~*~Kimiko's POV~*~**

The tense atmosphere had turned the air around us so heavy I knew I could have cut through it had I found a knife to try it out. I didn't know if all of my friends were aware that our imminent death was creeping closer with each second that passed, each time we moved closer to the planet towering in front of our space shuttle. They needed to know, as much as it could cost me to tell them. If they know the real magnitude of what we were facing right now, there can be the possibility we can think of a way to avoid the situation.

"_You cannot solve a problem that is unknown to you, Kimiko, you must identify it first and the answers will follow soon after_," my mother used to say.

I knew everyone was wondering what was going to happen next, and I would give anything to change the answer I was going to give them. Taking a deep breath to calm myself, the words finally slipped off my lips.

"At this rate, we'll be destroyed by the atmosphere," I told them sadly.

Not wanting to see their shocked faces, I turned away and walked over to stare out of a window just like Howard was doing.

"The shuttle's going to burn down!" Shingo asked me alarmed, rushing to my side and pulling on my purple jacket's sleeve to make me look down at him.

"What!" Howard shouted, training his gaze to me.

"We're going to die!" Sharla suddenly understood.

Everyone turned to stare at her in surprise, the words having a greater effect on them once they were said directly. To be honest, the last one I thought would say it aloud was my most innocent friend.

"Stop kidding me! You think I can die in a place like this!" Howard once again let panic take control of him, moving his eyes crazily as he inspected each one of us.

"Calm down!" Menori roared at him, knowing just how anxious he was making everyone feel. "Isn't there anything we can do?"

She turned to Shingo and me, seeing as we were the only ones who knew more or less what was happening with the shuttle.

"We should be able to fly it manually, but without knowing the angle or approach…" Shingo's voice faded off after he turned around to stare at the board intently, leaving my friends' confused expressions to me.

"Every planet's atmosphere is different, the angle the ship has to be in and the approach direction you must take varies depending on the place you're currently flying by and the shape and speed the ship can reach," I explained to everyone, using one of the many things I learned from my dad.

"But, the computer…" Luna reminded us, indirectly saying we had no way of knowing the correct way to land this shuttle. Suddenly, her eyes widened as she thought of something, and she quickly whipped around. "Chako!"

"You finally remembered I'm here," the short cat told her amused.

We all turned to the pilot's seat, where Koinu and Chako were comfortably sitting, amusing themselves by watching our scared antics. Jumping out of the seat excitedly, Chako examined the whole board carefully while Koinu, never having been good with electronics, simply stood up by my side loyally, watching intently everything the small cat did.

Pulling out a bunch of cables and switches, Chako finally spoke. "Gauges're all busted, huh? Ah well, it will work out somehow."

Raising her paw, a long thin device suddenly came out from it, the sharp parts appearing by its sides revealing it to be some kind of key. Chako pressed a button on the board in front of her, opening a small compartment made out of glass. It was the place where the pilot would insert the key to power the whole ship up, just like everyone else did with normal cars.

We all gasped in amazement when three buttons flickered after Chako inserted her special key, which appeared to have molded well with the entrance. From then, the whole computer suddenly turned on, the symbols and buttons which had not been damaged shining with the same colored lights.

"Guidance calculations okay. Entry angle calculated. Autopilot is impossible after all," Chako read the report, apparently connecting with the main computer. "Luna, take the helm."

Slightly surprised, my red-headed friend nodded and sat on the pilot's seat, grabbing the lever which controlled the whole escape shuttle.

"Wait! How do we know you-!" Howard started to object, but Menori held her arm firm in front of him, cutting him rudely.

"Luna, do you have experience?" Our leader asked, scrutinizing Luna in search for anything that indicated she was lying.

"It's my first atmospheric entry, but I have piloted an escape capsule before," she told us honestly, determination burning in her dark blue orbs as she watched us.

"Hold on a moment!" Koinu suddenly spoke by my side, raising his left paw to catch our attention. "If that's the case, then Kimiko should be the one doing it."

"WHAT!" Almost about everyone, including me, asked in shock.

"Luna is just as capable of doing this job, so let her do it!" Chako quickly defended her master, walking over to my pet-robot and pressing her forehead roughly against his in aggression.

"Kimiko has flown escape capsules too and has had more training as well! What makes you think Luna should be the one doing it!" Koinu yelled back, baring his fangs as he glared at the pink cat.

"O-Oi, stop it," I said, feeling extremely embarrassed of the prideful fight taking place at the moment.

"Is fighting everything you two can do?" Luna tried to reason with them as she sweat dropped, shifting her position so that she could stand quickly to separate both pets if necessary.

Ever since they met, Koinu and Chako had always found a way to begin fights comparing both Luna and me. Of course, neither of them liked to hear that their owner was worse than the other's and they always defended us no matter what. Luna and I had learned not to pay attention to them and their silly fights, though we were grateful our best friends thought so high of us and always tried to put us first. Even so, Koinu never had anything against Luna, and Chako was always very kind to me.

"Well, Luna is an incredible fast learner, and with my help she will be flying this in no time! Besides, what kind of training did Kimiko had about all this!" Chako kept on going without listening to us, the last sentence finally making Koinu snap.

"Her father was the Captain of his own ship! He taught her everything he knew!" Koinu barked, his fur standing up as he shook in anger, not standing that someone doubted the skills of his former owner.

"Koinu!" I scolded him in alarm, feeling as if someone had thrown a clean punch to my stomach at the mention of my father.

"Kimiko, is that true?" Menori asked me seriously.

Turning back to my teammates, I realized that they were all staring at me intently, not actually knowing what to think after listening to the small robots' fight. I closed my hands into fists and looked down to my shoes as I thought what to answer, not wanting to give them false hopes. I only wished that either the wall or the floor would swallow me whole now.

"I've never done anything like this," I finally whispered, not daring to look at anyone in the eye.

"And neither has Luna," Koinu reminded me, motioning with his paw towards my friend.

Finally lifting my gaze, I locked eyes with Luna in search for a clue as to what to do next. She was looking at me deep in thought, almost as if trying to understand what I was so shaken up about.

It was not long before she smiled brightly, standing out of her seat without taking her eyes off of me. "I think Kimiko should be the one doing it."

"Eh!" Chako's jaw touched the floor comically as she turned to look at her owner. "After all I did for you!"

"It's clear Kimiko knows better than me what has to be done and how the computer works. At least she would know what she's doing," Luna explained sheepishly, receiving a firm nod from my puppy.

"Can you do it?" Menori turned to ask me again, piercing me with her big purple eyes.

"I…" I mumbled as I looked at all my friends, looking for some way out of it.

It's true I knew the procedure of what to do when someone entered the atmosphere, but I preferred if Chako helped Luna doing it. What I feared the most was that my body would not resist the tension, giving up into another coughing fit and making me lose control. I was not in the right conditions for piloting a shuttle, and I couldn't risk my friends' lives just for my own pride.

"Don't worry, you'll be fine," Koinu reassured me tenderly with a smile, almost as if reading my mind.

"But…" I whispered again, the fight going on in my mind preventing me to form concrete sentences as I trained my gaze to everyone standing in front of me.

My father used to say that death was one of the things space could bring, just the way it could bring life. Nature was made out of pure balances, and we had to respect them no matter how painful it was.

But looking now at my friends, I realized just how painful balance could be. None of my parents believed in destiny, they always told me to fight for my dreams no matter what, dreams that were broken the moment I was left alone. They said I didn't have to give up in life, that I should always be happy…

_"Promise me you'll live! Promise me you'll survive!"_

My eyes widened once I remembered what my father told me right before the end. I promised him I was going to fight for my life! And I wasn't alone anymore; I had to do everything on my reach to save my friends as well. I would never forgive myself if anything happened to them when I could have done anything to help them fight for their lives too.

"Chako!" I called my friend's pet, startling everyone. "I'll need your help with the exact measures!" I told her with a determined expression now present on my face, my eyes sparkling with the fire which had once sparkled in Luna's.

"Kimiko!" Luna called me happily, rushing towards me to squeeze me in a hug.

"I don't like this!" Howard protested, stomping his foot in anger.

"We have no choice but to let her try," Kaoru suddenly said, making everyone turn towards the wall he was leaning on and stare at him in shock.

"I think so too!" Shingo stepped forward, supporting me without a doubt.

"Me too!" Bell and Sharla were quick to voice their opinions too.

"Bell, damn you!" Howard turned and yelled at the tall brunette, making him to cower in shame.

"Guys…" I started softly, looking at everyone. "I promise not to let you down!" I nodded at them confidently, feeling powered up by their trust.

"Okay, we'll leave it to Kimiko," Menori nodded. "Everyone else, take your seats!"

Everyone immediately did what they were told, and soon they were all sitting with their belts buckled, hoping for the worst never to happen. Looking down at the small joystick I was holding, I tried to familiarize myself with everything until eventually finding everything I needed for the folly I was about to do.

"You ready?" Chako asked me gently, the fact that she was not angry with me not surprising me at all. Her fight had been with Koinu after all.

"Yeah, let's do this," I told her with a deep sigh, tightening my grip on the lever.

"First off, you hafta point the ship straight."

"I know."

Looking down again, I found two triangular buttons on each lower corner of the lever, identifying the left one as the one which held the propulsion switches. Pressing it gently, a small pad slid from the side, displaying a set of six buttons, each one controlling one of the propellants.

"Help me here, Chako. First is roll," I informed her, moving my finger towards the bottom left switch.

"Aye. Push that button for two seconds," she told me adeptly, watching me while I did as she said. "Stop."

"Next is top left," I informed her again, moving my finger towards that button.

"Two seconds," she told me again. "Stop."

"Lifting the nose," I announced, patiently waiting for her to read the information out of the computer.

"Top for three and a half seconds," she finally translated the information to me. "Sixteen above level. We're entering nose first," she reported.

"Understood. Closing the heat-resistant shutters," I informed with short sentences and a loud secure voice, just as my father did when he was in his ship.

Quickly checking the keyboard, I found what I was looking for and pulled down a lever to my right. Without a second to waste, thick metallic shields deployed on the windows, specially made for protecting the travelers from the friction heat created when entering the atmosphere of a planet. Still, I knew it was not enough to survive the collision.

"Activating cooling system!" I dictated again, pressing a set of four buttons above me.

"Cooling system, activated!" Chako informed our friends, and sure enough a light breeze greeted everyone's face.

Our escape shuttle entered the odd planet's atmosphere in those moments. The white light which had once illuminated the whole place turned red, warning everyone of what was happening. My hands tightened their grip on the joystick nervously as I gulped loudly, trying my best to keep my mind in what I was doing instead of falling into my memories again.

"Entering atmosphere," Chako informed the obvious out of pure protocol. "Outer wall temperature rising," she told me, looking at me expectantly.

"Hai. Cooling system at maximum!" I nodded at her, sliding a small lever to the right in the last panel where I had turned the cooling system on.

"That's it," Chako mumbled sadly, wishing there was something else we could do instead of leaving it to the hands of fate.

The shuttle once again shook violently making small screams and grunts come out from the back part, where my friends were sitting. Gritting my teeth, I narrowed my eyes in frustration, hoping with all my heart for everything to come out alright. The red lights on both cabins were a cruel reminder of the inferno currently licking at our shuttle's shields, trying its best to reach us and take us down with it. The pressure created by the speed we were going to was pressing us against our seats, our heads pounding painfully, and it soon became difficult to move around.

Eventually, the red lights turned off, quickly being replaced by the white ones once more. The trembling subsided as well as the atmosphere's pressure, and the temperature seemed to start decreasing as well. I felt a horrible emptiness in my stomach once the planet's gravity reached us, pulling down our shuttle for just a moment.

"Airspeed good. Altitude 25,000," Chako read the stats, the good news making me release a puff of air and slouch back into my seat. "We made it through!" She informed the ones in the back, being greeted with relieved exclamations.

"Opening front shutter," I called as I moved the lever situated to my right again, the silver shields moving upwards to let us see where we were heading.

"We can do this," Chako assured me.

I nodded and pushed the joystick forward, making the nose of the shuttle to lower in order to set it back straight. Suddenly, a blue light illuminated our view, and a loud cracking noise threatened to leave us deaf. A chill ran down our spines as we covered our ears and closed our eyes, afraid of this new phenomenon.

"What is this?" I asked Chako alarmed, trying my best to keep my eyes open instead of closing them out of pure reflex each time a new sound exploded.

"It's lightning. It's my first time seein' the real thing too," Chako confessed, looking far from scared of this new 'lightning'.

Small water drops started to smash against the glass, making it even harder for me to see a thing.

"After the lightning comes the rain. We must be underneath the clouds now," Chako told me silently, watching the dark scenery outside our shuttle.

Another thunderous sound was then heard and, not even a second later, the ship started plummeting downwards. The lights started turning on and off as a loud buzzing sound made its role as an alarm, making my heart jolt in fear.

"We've been hit!" I exclaimed, my mind rushing to remember something of use from what my father had taught me.

Reaching out, I turned on a few switches to increase the power of the propellants, incredibly reducing our falling speed. This giving me a few more time, I searched the outside for a place where we could land. However, everything being illuminated by lightning was water.

"It seems like we're flying just over the ocean," Chako collaborated, telling me she was thinking the same thing I was.

"Alright, we'll land on the water," I decided, making the small robot to turn and look at me with a surprised face.

"You know how to!"

"I've never really tried on my own, but I remember the theory," I admitted, frowning as I saw the ocean drawing nearer.

"Fine, I'll help you anyway I can," she nodded at me, facing forwards again. "The propellants should help us have an easy stop. Okay, raise the nose!"

"Understood. I'll give my best," I confirmed her, pulling the joystick towards me to do as she said.

A gasp of shock left my lips though, once I discovered that the ocean had been closer than we thought. The shuttle crashed against the water and bounced back up because of its momentum. The screams of my friends reached my ears and I tried my best to level the shuttle, but the continuous waves and strong wind was making me lose control over the ship.

"Look out!" Chako cried out to me, pointing towards some pointy rocks sticking out of the water.

"Gah!" I moved the lever to the sides wildly, achieving to dodge most of the lethal rocks.

However, the turbulence of my sharp turns had scared my teammates, who were screaming nonstop again. I was desperately thinking of any solutions to stop the shuttle, which was only sliding and bouncing on top of the waves instead of stopping. Something clicked on my mind the moment a lightening bolt illuminated a big set of rocks close to each other, a crazy idea soon forming on my mind.

"Wait, what are you doing? We are going to crash!" An agitated Chako tried to stop me, staring unbelievingly when I turned off the propellants and made the shuttle go towards the rocks.

"No, we're not," I promised as we glided closer, preparing myself in case I needed to do any harsh movements with the joystick.

Just as I had hoped, a fallen rock had the use of an airstrip, reducing our speed until almost stopping. What I had not seen though was that a smaller rock was creating some kind of level in our improvised landing strip, ruining our trajectory. The nose of the shuttle bounced up once it came into contact with the uneven part of the rock, landing on some bigger rocks which finally stopped our shuttle. The sharp movement sent us all against our seats' back, our head hitting painfully against the hard metal underneath the fabric.

**°°TT°°TT°°**

_"It's a new disease no one has ever heard of before."_

_"Mommy, you're going to get better, you'll see."_

_"Kimiko, I'm very proud of being your mother."_

_"We're sorry. She passed away while sleeping."_

_"Koinu will always be by your side, taking care of you."_

_"But I don't want to live without you. Please don't leave me."_

_"No! Promise me you'll live! Promise me you'll survive!"_

**°°TT°°TT°°**

_Splish…Splash…_

A weak groan escaped my lips after I started to regain consciousness, my limbs feeling as heavy as if they were made out of lead. I frowned and moved my eyes underneath their eyelids, a bright light entering through them.

_Splash…Splish…_

What had happened? Where am I? Am I dead? What about the others? Did everyone die? Did I fail?

_Splish…Splish…_

That sound…Was that water?

Being guided by instinct, I twitched my fingers, feeling glad once I discovered I could still move them. My toes moved too, my neck…

_Splash…Splash…_

My blue eyes jolted open, catching sight of the heat-resistant shutters on the glass in the cockpit and the apparently broken board. I groaned once more and lifted my hand to the back of my head, feeling it incredibly sore. Had I been knocked out?

"I'm glad to see you're awake!" A familiar voice spoke quietly from my side.

Slowly turning my aching head to my right, I found Koinu and Chako resting peacefully on the seat beside mine, staring at me happily.

"Koinu?" I asked him in a daze, still not registering completely what was happening.

"It sure was a rough landing, ne?" Chako asked me with a smile, doing the peace sign with her paws.

"Rough landing?" I repeated, blinking in confusion. Realization soon dawned on me though. "Ah! How's everyone!" I gasped, turning around quickly to take a look to the cabin where my friends were sitting, ignoring the stinging pain.

"Safe. Nobody seems to be hurt," Koinu calmed me down, smiling at my concern.

Ignoring my aching body, I stepped firmly and pushed myself up, holding onto my seat to keep my balance. Walking out of the cockpit, I silently watched my friends, who were currently sleeping soundlessly. Or had they fainted like me?

Shaking that thought away, I walked over to the middle of the hallway, being able to see them all. "Everyone, wake up!"

A small groan to my left informed me that Luna was waking up, and Bell was blinking in confusion behind her as well. Smiling in relief, I turned to my right to check on the others just to be greeted by a shuffling Howard. Shaking my head, I caught sight of Kaoru twitching in his seat and, taking a closer look, I was able to see his eyes moving underneath his eyelids as if he was having a nightmare.

"Kaoru! Kaoru!" I called him gently, shaking his shoulder to wake him up. I smiled at him and stood up-straight again once he opened his eyes, going over to Shingo and Menori to shake them awake as well.

"Kimiko, what happened to us?" Sharla asked me sleepily from the front, standing up and rubbing her eyes under her glasses.

"It looks like we survived somehow," I answered with a smile, pointing towards the window in the cockpit, where a bright light was entering from the half-closed shutters.

Hearing this, the rest of my friends stood up as well, heading towards the cockpit to try and see something outside the windows. The scenery outside was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, our space colony having to do absolutely nothing compared to this. The sky was a wonderful mix of blues and greens with white puffy clouds relaxing with the wind. Below it, the immense ocean was sparkling with the morning sun, displaying a darker shade of the same colors as the sky.

"The sea!" Sharla exclaimed in awe, leaning closer to the window beside me.

"The clouds are moving…" Luna noticed, gaping at the view we were all enjoying at the moment.

"It's the sun," Shingo pointed out, motioning to a huge yellow orb rising in front of us.

"I wonder where this is," Luna whispered over to Sharla as I moved to the back to give Menori and Bell a chance to see.

"The sun is the real thing, right?" Shingo asked out loud, not actually expecting to receive an answer.

"It's obviously a man-made sun," Howard stated, refusing to believe anything else.

"Luna, this doesn't seem like the inside of a colony," Sharla commented, gaining the attention of my pet-robot, who had been standing beside me by the arch.

"That's right! Those clouds and sea right in front of us are not man-made. That's really the sun!" Koinu informed us proudly, gaining a nod in agreement from Chako.

"It's the first time I've felt this," Luna stated, turning back to the window after Koinu's explanation. "It's warm and soft and gives me a happy feeling."

"That's true," Bell smiled as he peeked through the shutters.

"If you're saying that's the real sun, then this is Earth after all?" Howard asked us, never taking his eyes off of the real nature in front of him.

"I ain't sure about that, but the atmosphere's composition seems to be like Earth's," Chako nodded, staring at our friends' shocked stares.

"Come to think of it, we've been breathing this last while, but…" Sharla suddenly realized, bringing her hand up to her mouth in concern.

"The shuttle's systems are supplying us with Oxygen, right?" Howard asked coolly, wanting to give the impression that he knew what was currently happening.

"All those are totally busted," I mumbled shyly, sweat dropping once I realized I had forgotten all about them.

"EH!" Everyone yelled at me as their faces drained from all color, making me to laugh sheepishly to hide my nervousness.

"What are you gettin' all surprised about now? We've been breathin' this planet's atmosphere for a while," Chako raised an eyebrow at them, not understanding their reaction at all.

"Look here," Koinu sighed, walking over to the back part of the escape shuttle and standing beside an indifferent Kaoru. "The outside air is getting in through here."

The black and white dog pointed over to a small dent formed on the door to the shuttle, motioning for us to come nearer. Sure enough, a bright ray of light was entering through the crack, illuminating that part of the ship.

"Is the air's composition okay?" Luna turned to ask Chako, who had walked over with the rest of them.

"It doesn't have anythin' toxic, but the amount of Carbon Dioxide is five times normal," Chako sent her a toothy grin, widening it after hearing our surprised gasps.

"Don't worry. That's well within your tolerance. The seawater is okay, too," Koinu eased them, sending a small glare over to Chako for scaring us like that.

"Yeesh! What's going on here, anyway?" Howard humped, glaring to the side.

"Can we send out the rescue beacon?" Sharla asked no one in particular, hoping that either the robots, Shingo or I would answer.

"Can't. The shuttle's systems are all totally busted," Chako informed sadly.

"Then there's nothing we can do?" Luna asked her friend hopefully, resting her hands on Sharla's shoulders comfortingly.

"They should have noticed on the ship that our escape shuttle was cut loose, right?" Shingo asked me loud enough for everyone to hear.

"That's right," Menori answered even before I could open my mouth. "They'll have realized we're gone by now and will start looking for us."

"Then we're supposed to hang out here like this until help comes?" Howard asked her skeptically, crossing his arms and staring coldly at our leader.

"Anyways, let's open the hatch and see how things look outside," I stepped in-between them with a smile, trying to cheer up the mood.

"Agreed!" Shingo, Luna and Sharla laughed, raising their hands as if we were in school.

"Let's see…" Luna mused, climbing up the small set of stairs of the shuttle and fumbling with the lock of the hatch.

Turning the lock to the right, the door snapped open, allowing Luna to push it forwards. Climbing up a few steps more, she poked her head out and stayed there for some moments with Chako.

"The wind feels nice!" We all heard her laugh from where we were.

"It seems like a real world," Chako agreed, only making us more curious.

"A real sun, the real sea, real clouds, and the real wind!" Our friend chanted happily, almost as if inviting us to delight ourselves with this new world.

"I'm gonna look too!" Howard said annoyed, climbing up the stairs and poking his head out like the girls.

"Let me see! Let me see!" Sharla begged, doing just the same as Howard.

"I wanna see too!" Shingo somehow managed to squirm between all of them.

"Beautiful!" Bell, Menori, Kaoru, Koinu and I then heard Sharla exclaim.

"They certainly look real," Shingo declared.

"Don't they!" Luna asked them excitedly, jumping slightly in place.

Finally not being able to refrain herself any longer, Menori stepped forward and stared at all the pairs of feet angrily. "Somebody move and let me see too!"

"Is the real sea like a giant puddle?" Shingo bent down to ask me, sending me a toothy grin because of the idea.

"Y-Yeah…" I smiled sheepishly as a sweat drop formed on the back of my head. "Like a big and deep puddle."

By my side, Kaoru snorted in disagreement and turned his face to the side in an attempt to hide a smirk, amused at how I had accepted Shingo's comparison. I blinked at him surprised, but before I could even speak, Sharla's voice caught our attention again.

"There!"

"It's land!" Luna concluded, finally climbing out of the shuttle, giving us space to go out as well.

I climbed up the steps eagerly after Menori, being followed by Bell and Kaoru. The moment our heads popped out, a cool gentle breeze blew our hair out of our faces, receiving us with the strong smell of salt. The scenery was even more beautiful in real life, and it expanded all around us. The ocean waves were producing a very soft sound, the breeze being too light to pick up the water and slam it against the rocks, and my cold hands and legs even started to warm up thanks to the bright sun burning on top of our heads.

"It is land!" Sharla laughed, snapping me out of my reverie.

Feeling that the boys had already stepped out of the hatch, I sat on the corner and wheeled my body in the direction that my friends were staring at. To my surprise, I was met with the view of a few mountains towering over long pieces of green, which were probably either a forest or a jungle, a few miles away from where we were.

"It's land! It's land!" Shingo cried happily, suddenly appearing behind my back and throwing his arms around my neck.

"There's foliage," Luna pointed out excitedly.

"Maybe there are animals too!" I collaborated, already feeling my hopes rising. "Right?" I smiled at Shingo over my shoulder, seeing as he was still hanging from my back without letting me stand up.

"Can we swim there?" Howard asked impatiently, already wanting to get away from our escape shuttle in the middle of the ocean.

"It's dangerous, and furthermore, far," Menori rejected the idea, shaking her head seriously.

"I've certainly never swum in a real sea," Sharla commented worriedly, kneeling down and peeking at the sea dancing below the shuttle.

"Oh yeah!" Shingo suddenly sprang up the moment he remembered something. "Maybe there's some equipment in the shuttle!"

"Then let's look around for it!" Luna proposed happily, turning around to face us with her arms spread apart.

Sharla, Shingo and I smiled at her in agreement, hurrying to be the first ones to enter the shuttle once more. The rest of our team followed more calmly behind us, being more collected than our childish selves. We all went our own way as we searched through every crack and door we could find, hoping to find something of use.

I admit it was still uncomfortable for me to be inside of an escape shuttle again, but the urge to help everyone was pushing all those thoughts out of my mind. I kept on reminding myself that I was not alone this time, and that fact alone gave me more hope than I needed.

"Here!" Shingo suddenly called us. "There's a boat!"

I perked my head up and, sure enough, I found the youngest team member standing at the far back of the shuttle, right besides a black and yellow box and a pair of oars.

"There's a laser gun, too!" Howard now exclaimed, pulling a silver gun out of a drawer.

"And a knife and a mini-light!" Luna waved at us, pointing at the things she was holding.

"There's a sewing set…" Menori informed us, opening a slender pink box. "There's more….Mineral water and emergency rations!"

"And I found a first aid kit," Koinu announced proudly, holding the white box with the red logo above his head.

"It's better than I expected," I admitted with a smile, walking over to them and helping them place all the food on the small walkway crossing through the shuttle.

"You call this better?" Howard sneered at me, staring in disparagement at the food we had found.

"It's way better than nothing," I glared at him, not being able to believe he didn't understand the critical situation we were in.

"Let's distribute them among us. One for each person," Menori stopped our small fight, effectively gaining our attention. "We don't know when we'll be able to refill them. Everyone manage their own eating and drinking."

We all nodded in agreement and stepped forward to grab our share, noticing there were still a few more packages of food and bottles of water left.

"We'll save the rest for later," Menori ordered severely, almost as if reading our minds.

"Don't talk so miserly," Howard frowned at her. "There's sure to be something when we reach shore," he said, opening his water bottle and taking a big swig from it.

"We don't know that for certain," Luna told him tiredly, only making the prideful blond choke on his drink.

"Shut up!" He screamed rudely at her face. "I certainly know it!"

"What will you do if we find a dangerous animal?" Menori countered him, siding up with Luna.

"When it happens, I'll use this," he smugly told us, lifting the laser gun he had found earlier before in order to show it to us.

"You can use it?" The bluenette gasped worriedly, widening her eyes at the sight of the dangerous weapon.

"Papa took me hunting lots of times," Howard boasted, taking another swig of his water.

"By huntin', you mean shooting at special animal robots, right?" Chako frowned up at him, not liking how robots were treated in those kinds of sports.

"If you ask me, that's a dangerous hobby," Koinu nodded proudly, turning his back to Howard in dignity.

"It's something nobles have a taste for," Howard merely shrugged him off with a smug smirk on his face.

"After all, it's just a game," Kaoru concluded, taking my best friend's side in order to shut Howard up.

"What!" Howard yelled angrily, flailing his arms around.

"Stop it!" I glared at him, coughing a bit to stop my throat from itching. "Remember you're holding something dangerous!"

"I'll show you my skills sometime soon," he just bragged, sending me a know-it-all face as he aimed the gun at some random spot.

**°°TT°°TT°°**

After a few more minutes, Luna and Menori were able to stop the fight Howard and I had started, reminding us about our problem at hand. After being scolded lightly by Koinu for forgetting to take my meds, I took a bit from my water to swallow them up. Thanks to that, I could feel the burning pain in my lungs and throat start to diminish, giving me time to spend another day without constant coughing fits.

Right now, we were all currently standing outside the shuttle, getting the rowing boat ready to be used. Well, at least my friends were doing so. Menori had told me to stay put on the sidelines to prevent more fights, telling me I should be smarter than Howard. Yet, he was going to have all the fun.

"Are you really going alone?" Luna turned to ask the blond boy while she helped Menori put the oars together.

"Yeah, just me will me plenty," Howard sent a confident smile over to my redheaded friend, looking up from strapping the gun and knife holder on his waist and legs.

"I'll go with you," Menori declared, obviously not trusting such a task to Howard,

"I don't need you," he replied childishly as he admired his finished work.

"It'll be faster with two," our leader tried to reason with him. "And you plan to row by yourself?" She finally hit the winning spot, motioning over to the large extensions of water in-between the land and us.

"Do what you want," Howard finally gave in with a frown, sliding down over to the wing where Shingo and Bell were preparing the boat.

"This is so unfair," I whined to Koinu from over the other wing of the shuttle. "He's the one who started it all."

"And you were the one who followed his lead," my pet-robot scolded me, standing by my side as he enjoyed the sun.

"It's still unfair that I was the only one punished," I pouted, crossing my arms over my chest childishly.

"I bet Menori did it with a good intention," Sharla tried to comfort me kindly, climbing up the same wing I was leaning on, seeing as the shuttle was a bit lopsided because of the rocks it was resting on.

"Still…" I whined again, looking up at her seeing as she now almost reached the edge.

"Don't take it personal, would ya'?" Chako rolled her pink eyes at me. "Ya' ain't the only one doin' nothin'," she told me as she slid all the way from where she was standing with Sharla over to where Koinu and I were standing at, using the wing as a huge slide.

"That's right," Sharla smiled at me. "Chako and I are here with you, and so is Koinu! And by what I can see, Howard and Kaoru are doing nothing too!" She played the role of lookout, shading her eyes from the sun with her hand.

"Sharla, get down here before you hurt yourself," Koinu called our shy friend with a tired sigh.

"H-Hai! Sorry!" She gasped, sitting down on the wing and using it like a slide as Chako had previously done.

"Let's go to see how Shingo and Bell are doin'," Chako suddenly proposed, running over to the other wing of the shuttle.

"Ah, wait for us Chako!" Sharla called over to the pink cat, slightly sprinting after her.

I heaved a sad sigh before following slowly after my friends, stopping in my tracks for a moment to brush my gaze over the ocean and land. Apart from any random comment or explanation from my friends, it was pretty quiet. The tide was too low to crash against our shuttle, and there were no birds neither flying nor singing about either.

"What are you just standing there for?" Koinu turned to ask me, catching me in my absent minded state.

"It's nothing…I just…found it weird that there was this much silence," I confessed, turning to look all around me.

"So you think so too?" A deep voice spoke from behind me, making me jump in surprise.

"K-Kaoru!" I turned to him, noticing he was staring out to the ocean as I had just done.

"You two are worrying over nothing," Koinu told us nonchalantly. "You're just used to the city's busy and noise atmosphere."

"Still, shouldn't there be any kind of animals?" I fidgeted shyly with my fingers. "How about seagulls or any other birds?"

"Idiot!" Koinu huffed at me, making me flinch a bit. "There are no seagulls this far into the ocean."

"How was I supposed to know?" I pouted over at him, blushing at the though of Kaoru listening to our conversation.

"By paying attention in class of course," my little dog countered, crossing his arms and turning away from me.

"That was so made up," I mumbled as I did an anime fall, while Kaoru merely paid any attention to us.

"Alright!" Howard's voice broke into our conversation, catching my attention.

"Seems like they are already starting…Let's go watch!" Koinu told me excitedly, guiding me over to where all our teammates were gathered.

"You are a bit bipolar today," I mumbled as my eyebrow ticked in annoyance, receiving no comment whatsoever of Kaoru, who was following close behind me.

I reached Shingo's side just in time to see Howard's lame attempt of climbing into the rowboat and still managing to blame Bell for it, for impossible as it sounds. I sweat dropped as I heard the blond boy bickering by himself, finally sitting down at the bow of the boat.

"Will he really be okay?" Shingo whispered over to me, watching with a raised eyebrow at Howard's antics.

"Let's just hope Menori can do miracles," I giggled, watching as our leader stepped gracefully into the boat behind Howard.

"Luna, I'm leaving the rest to you," we heard Menori tell Luna as she gave her the oars.

"Be careful," Luna nodded in determination, assuming the responsibility of taking care of everyone staying behind.

"Don't worry," I smiled at both girls, walking over to Luna's side. "I'll help Luna in everything I can!"

Luna smiled gratefully at me but Menori whipped her head in my direction with a cold stare being held in her eyes, apparently angry because I had disobeyed her previous order of being invisible.

"She's…still mad at me…" I sulked in a corner, being surrounded by my sweat dropping friends as they tried to comfort me.

"Okay, let go," Howard ordered Bell, who was still keeping the boat in place.

The tall brunette grunted as he pushed the boat into the water currents, backing up to Luna's side as they watched the pair getting smaller with the distance.

"Luna." Chako called her friend from my side. "We're depending on you."

"Huh?" Luna turned to her with a confused look, bending down a bit to be able to stare at her cat better.

"While Menori ain't here, everyone's countin' on you to protect us," the pink kitty reminded her gently. "Keep your head clear."

"Maybe you can start with this problematic girl," Koinu sweat dropped as he motioned to my still sulking self.

"My, my," Luna giggled, walking over to my side. "You know Menori was just stressed Kimiko-chan."

"Still…!" I hiccupped, crying anime style at the memory of our leader's icy stare.

"We can't do anything if we just stay here and mop," Shingo smiled at me, patting my shoulder kindly.

"I know! Let's cheer them on!" Luna smiled excitedly, running back with Shingo and Sharla over to where Bell was standing.

I sighed sadly one last time as I watched my friends cheering excitedly by the edge of the wing, a pout adorning my face once I caught sight of the boat rowing farther every second. A loud sound from behind me suddenly caught my attention and the I discovered that Kaoru had jumped over to the roof of the shuttle, where he was squinting his eyes and covering them from the sunrays with his hand.

"Kaoru?" I mumbled in wonder, slowly standing up and climbing over to where he was standing. "What is it?"

He turned to me surprised for a second, apparently not noticing I had climbed up with him as well. He shifted his brown orbs back to the ocean as he scanned it in search for something, and I presume he found it.

"Look!" He told me as his eyes widened for a second, pointing at a large and thin shadow snaking its way underneath the water.

"What's that?" I exclaimed alarmed, narrowing my eyes in an attempt to see clearer and determine what the shadow really was.

"What happened?" Luna and Bell came rushing to our side, worrying at our serious expressions.

"Let's call them back!" I warned her worriedly, pointing over at the shadow to make them see the danger.

"What is it, what is it?" Chako urged us, climbing up to the roof of the shuttle alongside the rest of our friends. "What can you see?"

"Big trouble! There's a weird animal!" Luna told them, showing them where the moving shadow was.

"What did you say?" Shingo panicked, staring unbelievingly at the animal.

"It's going after the boat!" Koinu noticed, immediately making all of us break into a series of yells and calls to our teammates.

Shingo then ran over to the right wing of the shuttle, climbing all the way to the top like Sharla had done a few minutes ago. He took off his jacket and made signals to catch the attention of Menori and Howard. My heart started beating faster in fear while I screamed with everyone else, doing my best to ignore the burning pain the effort had caused in my throat and lungs. By my side, Kaoru was keeping an eye on the animal, watching helplessly as it came nearer and nearer to our rowboat and friends.

It was just then that Howard and Menori were able to stop the boat after coming out of a strong wave current, finally being able to hear all of our yells. Shingo, taking the opportunity when both teammates turned to see us, motioned downwards desperately, moving his jacket to emphasize.

"Howard! Below you! Below!" Shingo screamed with all his strength, being able to get his message over to our friends.

We all stood still as we watched our friends peek through the edges of the boat, catching sight of the long shadow sneaking down below them. I watched in frustration as the boat was then hit by the animal, sending our friends tumbling down on it. What came next though was not expected by anyone of us.

A huge water pillar rose up from the ocean right in front of the boat making us all gasp, or in my case choke. The water started cascading down from the column, revealing a gigantic brown snake with a yellow belly. Its bright yellow eyes were bulging out the side of its flat face, displaying the large and thin pupil only reptiles were said to have. The moment it opened its mouth to hiss dangerously, it revealed at least five rows of pointy teeth coming out of all his mouth and probably its throat too, a long red forked tongue sneaking out to smell its newfound food.

The ones standing here on the shuttle could do nothing but stare in mild horror at the newly introduced animal, too terrified to even speak. I could feel my whole body shaking uncontrollably as I stared at the scene, my heart's beating rising to an unbelievable speed in fear for my friends making me realize my body would not be able to support this much stress.

Suddenly…out from the middle of the ocean…a high-pitched scream ripped our ears and hearts.


End file.
